Use a differential FPGA pin as a single ended pin

[JColvin]

A customer on our website asked the following question:

On your dev/eval boards, even though you have certain signals routed as differential out to PMOD connectors, since FPGA's can be configurable I can still use those as single ended if I wish correct? It's just a convenience that those pins are already routed differentially should I require differential signals correct?

The response is below.

[JColvin]

Hello,

I believe that all of the differential pins that are routed to Pmod host ports can be used as single-ended pins (you can always create a simple design testing it and see if any errors are produced or not). I have asked some of our applications engineers to confirm the status of the pins though; they'll get back to you here on the Forum.

Thanks,
JColvin

[AndrewHolzer]

Hi,

You are correct, you can use differential pins as single-ended pins. You have to be careful with these pins, however, so as not to overload them with current. Because they do not have any protective resistors it is possible to blow out your board if you overload one of these pins with current.

AndrewHolzer