how much costs the Artix 7 devices?

[Frank Buss]

Got a newsletter with an advertisment for Xilinx' new Artix 7 devices:

http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/artix-7/index.htm

It says "low cost", but how low is low? Is there a distributor who has
stocked it or shows at least a lead time? And there is no non-BGA
package for it (like TQFP) anymore?

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

 

[Gabor]

Frank Buss wrote:

Got a newsletter with an advertisment for Xilinx' new Artix 7 devices:

http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/artix-7/index.htm

It says "low cost", but how low is low? Is there a distributor who has
stocked it or shows at least a lead time? And there is no non-BGA
package for it (like TQFP) anymore?

I got the vaporware ad, too. I checked the franchised distributors,
but none of them even acknowledge the existence of Artix-7. My guess
is that "shipping" means something different to Xilinx than it does
to you and me. Probably they have sampled the parts to some early
adopters.

-- Gabor

 

[Gabor]

Gabor wrote:

Frank Buss wrote:
Got a newsletter with an advertisment for Xilinx' new Artix 7 devices:

http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/artix-7/index.htm

It says "low cost", but how low is low? Is there a distributor who has
stocked it or shows at least a lead time? And there is no non-BGA
package for it (like TQFP) anymore?


I got the vaporware ad, too. I checked the franchised distributors,
but none of them even acknowledge the existence of Artix-7. My guess
is that "shipping" means something different to Xilinx than it does
to you and me. Probably they have sampled the parts to some early
adopters.

-- Gabor

I forgot to add - the reason why I was looking was to see availability
more than pricing. Early pricing is generally different from pricing
a year or more into production. I also wanted to know which parts
were "shipped." Usually Xilinx starts with a part somewhere in the
middle of the density spectrum, but it's not clear where they would
start with Artix-7 - perhaps at the high end to try to recover more
NRE costs? Most of us interested in low-cost FPGA's are more likely
to want the smallest part, which still has 100K "Logic Elements"
(multiply LUT's times 1.6 for LE's). And I wouldn't hold my breath
waiting for non-BGA packaging in 7-series parts.

-- Gabor

 

[Gabor]

Gabor wrote:

Gabor wrote:
Frank Buss wrote:
Got a newsletter with an advertisment for Xilinx' new Artix 7 devices:

http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/artix-7/index.htm

It says "low cost", but how low is low? Is there a distributor who has
stocked it or shows at least a lead time? And there is no non-BGA
package for it (like TQFP) anymore?


I got the vaporware ad, too. I checked the franchised distributors,
but none of them even acknowledge the existence of Artix-7. My guess
is that "shipping" means something different to Xilinx than it does
to you and me. Probably they have sampled the parts to some early
adopters.

-- Gabor

I forgot to add - the reason why I was looking was to see availability
more than pricing. Early pricing is generally different from pricing
a year or more into production. I also wanted to know which parts
were "shipped." Usually Xilinx starts with a part somewhere in the
middle of the density spectrum, but it's not clear where they would
start with Artix-7 - perhaps at the high end to try to recover more
NRE costs? Most of us interested in low-cost FPGA's are more likely
to want the smallest part, which still has 100K "Logic Elements"
(multiply LUT's times 1.6 for LE's). And I wouldn't hold my breath
waiting for non-BGA packaging in 7-series parts.

-- Gabor

OK, it took some digging, but I found the press release:

http://press.xilinx.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=212763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1715211&highlight=

Apparently they are starting with the XC7A100T (smallest device).

-- Gabor

 

[Jon]

They started putting PRs out about these devices out over 2 years ago.

Don't believe anything Xilinx says until they are in stock.

 

[Rob Gaddi]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2012 06:24:02 -0700 (PDT)
Jon <jon@beniston.com> wrote:

They started putting PRs out about these devices out over 2 years ago.

Don't believe anything Xilinx says until they are in stock.

Can you think of a semi vendor for whom that statement _isn't_ true?

--
Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com
Email address domain is currently out of order. See above to fix.

 

[Frank Buss]

Gabor wrote:

OK, it took some digging, but I found the press release:

http://press.xilinx.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=212763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1715211&highlight=

Thanks. This was from July 17, 2012: "Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today
announced first shipments of its Artix™-7 Field Programmable Gate Array
(FPGA) family."

Well, let's take pot luck when they will really ship it to end customers

Apparently they are starting with the XC7A100T (smallest device).

This would be good for my project. I was asking, because a CPLD is just
by a factor of 3 of 4 too small, so any small FPGA device would work.
But I guess the new Artix devices would be still more expensive than
e.g. the Spartan 3A, which I hope will be produced for some more years.

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

 

[Martin Thompson]

Frank Buss <fb@frank-buss.de> writes:

Gabor wrote:

OK, it took some digging, but I found the press release:

http://press.xilinx.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=212763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1715211&highlight=

Thanks. This was from July 17, 2012: "Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today
announced first shipments of its Artix™-7 Field Programmable Gate Array
(FPGA) family."

Well, let's take pot luck when they will really ship it to end customers

Apparently they are starting with the XC7A100T (smallest device).

This would be good for my project. I was asking, because a CPLD is just
by a factor of 3 of 4 too small, so any small FPGA device would work.
But I guess the new Artix devices would be still more expensive than
e.g. the Spartan 3A, which I hope will be produced for some more years.

The 7A100 is *massive* though (some smaller Artix devices got dropped last year IIRC):

* ~100K "logic cells" (63k 6-LUTs, 127k FFs), 240 DSP blocks, nearly 5Mbit Block RAM!

for a small cheap FPGA you still want Spartan 6 - smallest is 6SLX4:

* ~4K "logic cells" (2400 6-LUTs, 4800 FFs), 8 DSP blocks, 216Kb Blockram.

Cheers,
Martin

--
martin.j.thompson@trw.com
TRW Conekt - Consultancy in Engineering, Knowledge and Technology
http://www.conekt.co.uk/capabilities/39-electronic-hardware

 

[Frank Buss]

Martin Thompson wrote:

The 7A100 is *massive* though (some smaller Artix devices got dropped last year IIRC):

* ~100K "logic cells" (63k 6-LUTs, 127k FFs), 240 DSP blocks, nearly 5Mbit Block RAM!

for a small cheap FPGA you still want Spartan 6 - smallest is 6SLX4:

* ~4K "logic cells" (2400 6-LUTs, 4800 FFs), 8 DSP blocks, 216Kb Blockram.

Thanks, this looks good. Just 2 EUR more expensive at Digikey than the
Spartan 3, but more features. I think I'll use a 6SLX4.

BTW: this is my project, which I want to upgrade to a FPGA:

http://www.ohwr.org/projects/c64cartridge/wiki

Should be hobby user friendly, so no BGA.

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

 

The 7A100 is *massive* though (some smaller Artix devices got dropped last year IIRC):

Does anyone (without NDA) knows why the smaller devices got dropped, if there will some smaller devices reappear, and what the costs for "normal" quantities of the 7A100 are?

Regards,

Thomas

 

[maxascent]

I would forget about using an Artix until next year as I cant see anyon
having them until then.

Jon

---------------------------------------
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com

 

[scrts]

Thanks, this looks good. Just 2 EUR more expensive at Digikey than the
Spartan 3, but more features. I think I'll use a 6SLX4.

Maybe You'd like to take Altera parts into consideration?

P.S. The project page is seems like half-lithuanian?

 

[Frank Buss]

scrts wrote:

Thanks, this looks good. Just 2 EUR more expensive at Digikey than the
Spartan 3, but more features. I think I'll use a 6SLX4.

Maybe You'd like to take Altera parts into consideration?

Any device which is cheaper than a Spartan 6 (I need at least 144 pins)?
I get the XC6SLX4-2TQG144C for EUR 9.89 from Digikey. Looks like the
cheapest Cyclone I with TQFP 144 costs EUR 9.96 at Altera, and it is
less powerful than the Spartan 6.

P.S. The project page is seems like half-lithuanian?

The menu and navigation? Looks like the site tries to localize it, it is
German for me. I hope you don't mean my not so good English

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

 

[Brian Davis]

Frank Buss wrote:

Any device which is cheaper than a Spartan 6 (I need at least 144 pins)?
I get the XC6SLX4-2TQG144C for EUR 9.89 from Digikey. Looks like the
cheapest Cyclone I with TQFP 144 costs EUR 9.96 at Altera, and it is
less powerful than the Spartan 6.

The Lattice XO2's might also be a good fit, non-volatile (no boot rom needed).

The TQ100 pkg covers 256-2000 4-LUTs ( USD $4-$11 qty 1 @ DigiKey )
The TQ144 pkg covers 640-7000 4-LUTs ( USD $7-$14 qty 1 @ DigiKey )
http://www.latticesemi.com/products/cpld/machxo2/index.cfm

Less block RAM & no DSP's compared to similar normalized LUT-count S6 parts;
Lattice's XP2 family includes DSP blocks in a TQ144 pkg.

Another thing I like about the Lattice parts is that their free
Diamond tool includes the OEM version of Synplify.

Brian

 

[Frank Buss]

Brian Davis wrote:

The Lattice XO2's might also be a good fit, non-volatile (no boot rom needed).

The TQ100 pkg covers 256-2000 4-LUTs ( USD $4-$11 qty 1 @ DigiKey )
The TQ144 pkg covers 640-7000 4-LUTs ( USD $7-$14 qty 1 @ DigiKey )
http://www.latticesemi.com/products/cpld/machxo2/index.cfm

Less block RAM & no DSP's compared to similar normalized LUT-count S6 parts;
Lattice's XP2 family includes DSP blocks in a TQ144 pkg.

Another thing I like about the Lattice parts is that their free
Diamond tool includes the OEM version of Synplify.

Looks interesting. I don't know Synplify, but a OEM version of Aldec
Active-HDL is integrated, too, which I've used sometime ago and which
was very good for debugging. And the 'C' parts need only one 3.3 V
supply voltage for core and IO, so I don't need another voltage
regulator (and power supply ramp rates requirements are very easy to
fulfil: 0.01 - 100 mV/Îźs).

I've installed the Diamond IDE and it is very similar to Xilinx ISE. My
current design, but with a 1 MB external SRAM instead of 128 kB, fits in
125 LUTs and the VHDL file compiled without changes (just some more
warnings about unused pins).

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss