Lattice new 28nm series - any clues about availability ?...

[Brane 2]

Just a few days ago, they presented Certus-NX series that is based on their new Nexus platform.

Has anyone here been testing these and what else can we expect on 28nm ?

Will there be ECP3 and XO3 successor with Nexus ?

I\'ve contacted Lattice, but so far received no formal response.

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 2:16:53 AM UTC-4, Brane 2 wrote:

Just a few days ago, they presented Certus-NX series that is based on their new Nexus platform.

Has anyone here been testing these and what else can we expect on 28nm ?

Will there be ECP3 and XO3 successor with Nexus ?

I\'ve contacted Lattice, but so far received no formal response.

I see Mouser has development boards listed, but not stocked. I\'ve requested a quote on delivery.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 2:16:53 AM UTC-4, Brane 2 wrote:

Just a few days ago, they presented Certus-NX series that is based on their new Nexus platform.

Has anyone here been testing these and what else can we expect on 28nm ?

Will there be ECP3 and XO3 successor with Nexus ?

I\'ve contacted Lattice, but so far received no formal response.

I\'m not sure what the big news is on this device. They don\'t give any indication of pricing or power consumption other than \"Up to 4x lower power vs. similar FPGAs.\" which is a pretty meaningless statement.

My main concern is the static power consumption. The data sheet gives zero information on that.

One thing that seems a bit odd is that the smaller of the two devices has much more large memory than the larger. The two devices seem to have about the same total dedicated memory, but the larger device has it mostly in the smaller 18kb EBR blocks while the smaller part has it mostly in the larger 64 kB LRAM blocks.

It is interesting to note both parts have a pair of 12 bit, 1 MSPS ADC on chip as well as three analog comparators. The configuration is RAM based, but quick to load using a high speed 4 bit wide SPI.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Brane 2]

I like ECP5 pricing, but ECP5 is a bit long in the tooth - at 40 nm etc.

SInce leading edge has moved quite significantly since ECP5 was introduced, so has the golden middle ( bang/buck) region.

So now we\'ll have at 28nm:

cheaper SERDES 5G options
- hopefully better prices
- some bells and whistless here and there.
- BIG RAM blocks seem nice
- same with other tweaks for RISC-V implementation etc.
- higher I/O bandwidth per pin. These things do 1,2 Gbps acrss quite a few options.

 

[Theo]

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
> I see Mouser has development boards listed, but not stocked. I\'ve requested a quote on delivery.

mouser.co.uk is showing 13 boards in stock at the moment. I assume
mouser.com will too.
https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/Lattice/LIFCL-40-EVN

Nice price, although I don\'t see a PCIe-friendly connector there - I hope
they ship a useful FMC adaptor.

Theo

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 9:34:18 AM UTC-4, Theo wrote:

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
I see Mouser has development boards listed, but not stocked. I\'ve requested a quote on delivery.

mouser.co.uk is showing 13 boards in stock at the moment. I assume
mouser.com will too.
https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/Lattice/LIFCL-40-EVN

Nice price, although I don\'t see a PCIe-friendly connector there - I hope
they ship a useful FMC adaptor.

Theo

The quote I got was 4-6 weeks from factory. That often can mean anything including they are not being shipped yet. When I check the UK site it says

Mfr. No: LFD2NX-VERSA-EVN
Stock: Non-stocked

Your link just took me to the main page.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 8:23:43 AM UTC-4, Brane 2 wrote:

I like ECP5 pricing, but ECP5 is a bit long in the tooth - at 40 nm etc.

SInce leading edge has moved quite significantly since ECP5 was introduced, so has the golden middle ( bang/buck) region.

So now we\'ll have at 28nm:

cheaper SERDES 5G options
- hopefully better prices
- some bells and whistless here and there.
- BIG RAM blocks seem nice
- same with other tweaks for RISC-V implementation etc.
- higher I/O bandwidth per pin. These things do 1,2 Gbps acrss quite a few options.

I don\'t evaluate FPGAs based on nm. If they are better I consider what they are better at. No info to say they are cheaper. Not sure what bells and whistles you might be talking about. It has two 12 bit ADCs and lots of memory, but many FPGAs have lots of memory. Lattice has low cost chips with full SERDES, in fact, they broke convention and made the other vendors offer SERDES on lower cost devices.

I don\'t like the package options. I much prefer non-BGA types. QFN or smaller QFPs are nice. For some reason the world seems to like the monster 144 pin QFPs. They are 30% wider than my board!

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Theo]

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 9:34:18 AM UTC-4, Theo wrote:
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
I see Mouser has development boards listed, but not stocked. I\'ve requested a quote on delivery.

mouser.co.uk is showing 13 boards in stock at the moment. I assume
mouser.com will too.
https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/Lattice/LIFCL-40-EVN

Nice price, although I don\'t see a PCIe-friendly connector there - I hope
they ship a useful FMC adaptor.

Theo

The quote I got was 4-6 weeks from factory. That often can mean anything including they are not being shipped yet. When I check the UK site it says

Mfr. No: LFD2NX-VERSA-EVN
Stock: Non-stocked

Your link just took me to the main page.

It seems there\'s two eval boards. The LIFCL-40-EVN is for the Crosslink NX
and the LFD2NX-VERSA-EVN is for the Certus NX. The former is in stock at
Mouser, the latter isn\'t.

The Crosslink has more video support (MIPI D-PHY etc) but otherwise I\'m not
sure the difference. The Certus eval board is shaped like a PCIe card,
while the Crosslink has PCIe on SMAs.

Theo

 

[Rick C]

On Tuesday, June 30, 2020 at 7:28:25 AM UTC-4, Theo wrote:

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
On Monday, June 29, 2020 at 9:34:18 AM UTC-4, Theo wrote:
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
I see Mouser has development boards listed, but not stocked. I\'ve requested a quote on delivery.

mouser.co.uk is showing 13 boards in stock at the moment. I assume
mouser.com will too.
https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/Lattice/LIFCL-40-EVN

Nice price, although I don\'t see a PCIe-friendly connector there - I hope
they ship a useful FMC adaptor.

Theo

The quote I got was 4-6 weeks from factory. That often can mean anything including they are not being shipped yet. When I check the UK site it says

Mfr. No: LFD2NX-VERSA-EVN
Stock: Non-stocked

Your link just took me to the main page.

It seems there\'s two eval boards. The LIFCL-40-EVN is for the Crosslink NX
and the LFD2NX-VERSA-EVN is for the Certus NX. The former is in stock at
Mouser, the latter isn\'t.

The Crosslink has more video support (MIPI D-PHY etc) but otherwise I\'m not
sure the difference. The Certus eval board is shaped like a PCIe card,
while the Crosslink has PCIe on SMAs.

Theo

I\'m not really interested in an eval board, but the fact that the Certus eval board is still vaporware says to not worry about being able to buy this chip any time soon. Combine that with an unknown price and a single 0.5 mm pitch BGA package type and my interest drops by an order of magnitude. The LFD2NX-17 is only available in a single package. The -40 device includes an \"ALU\" block which seems to be hard IP for implementing a RISCV processor. So why the ALU but less of the large memory blocks? I supposed they expect an external memory to be connected to support really large programs on the RISCV.

Only the larger part has a hard PCIe interface, so the PCIe board will be using the larger part. If you want to prototype a design using the large memory blocks in the smaller part you will be out of luck. Sounds like a marketing opportunity for a bright lad.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209