The JTAG connections on the FPGA are wired directly to the expansion connector MC2 on the XEM8305 to facilitate FPGA configuration and ChipScope usage using a AMD JTAG cable. The JTAG interface presented at MC2 is a 1.8V interface corresponding to the FPGA JTAG I/O voltage. An appropriate connector (such as a 2mm connector compatible with the AMD JTAG cable) would need to be wired on the carrier attached to the XEM8305. See the Expansion Connectors page for more details. Our BRK8305 has this connector and may be used as a reference.

The USB interface on FrontPanel-enabled devices provides FrontPanel-based FPGA configuration and communication only. This interface is not available for JTAG access and is not compatible with the vendor tools for JTAG communication (i.e. AMD Vivado Integrated Logic Analyzer).

A vendor-supported JTAG cable is required to interface with the JTAG connector and provide tool access to JTAG. The following JTAG cables are available with connectors compatible with the connector on the BRK8305 breakout board: