Spartan 3 errata and pricing

K

Krishna Kumar

Guest
Hello,
I am trying to choose between a Xilinx XC3S1000 FG456 and XC2V1000
FG456. Listed below is a comparison based on the parameters that I am
looking for:

XC3S1000 FG456 XC2V1000FG456
I/Os 333 324
GCK 8 16
Price $47(per 100 piece) >$120 (per 100 piece)

Now there is a vast difference in price between the 2. The user I/Os
are comparable and I think 8 GCK in spartan 3 should suffice. But my
only concern is Spartan 3 is not yet in full production. Xilinx is
manufacturing only "ES" parts which is an abbreviation for Engineering
samples. I hear from the local FAEs that ES may have some errata and
the availability is not guaranteed. What does the errata contain? Does
anybody have any info on the pricing, availability and contents of the
errata? I need to know my devices thoroughly before I can use them in
my design. Any suggestions are welcome.

thanks
Krishna Kumar
DSP System Engineer
Signalogic Inc
Dallas, TX
 
Krishna Kumar wrote:
Hello,
I am trying to choose between a Xilinx XC3S1000 FG456 and XC2V1000
FG456. Listed below is a comparison based on the parameters that I am
looking for:

XC3S1000 FG456 XC2V1000FG456
I/Os 333 324
GCK 8 16
Price $47(per 100 piece) >$120 (per 100 piece)

Now there is a vast difference in price between the 2. The user I/Os
are comparable and I think 8 GCK in spartan 3 should suffice. But my
only concern is Spartan 3 is not yet in full production. Xilinx is
manufacturing only "ES" parts which is an abbreviation for Engineering
samples. I hear from the local FAEs that ES may have some errata and
the availability is not guaranteed. What does the errata contain? Does
anybody have any info on the pricing, availability and contents of the
errata? I need to know my devices thoroughly before I can use them in
my design. Any suggestions are welcome.
Click to expand...
That is news to me. Over a month ago, I was quoted a delivery of around
8 weeks IIRC. The ES parts I could have from stock. The part I was
asking about was the XC3S400, so perhaps the 1000 is a bit behind. Did
they tell you *when* you could expect production parts?

--

Rick "rickman" Collins

rick.collins@XYarius.com
Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY
removed.

Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company
Specializing in DSP and FPGA design URL http://www.arius.com
4 King Ave 301-682-7772 Voice
Frederick, MD 21701-3110 301-682-7666 FAX
 
"Krishna Kumar" <krishk24@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e23e0547.0408030936.767426b1@posting.google.com...
Hello,
I am trying to choose between a Xilinx XC3S1000 FG456 and XC2V1000
FG456. Listed below is a comparison based on the parameters that I am
looking for:
[snip]
samples. I hear from the local FAEs that ES may have some errata and
the availability is not guaranteed. What does the errata contain? Does
anybody have any info on the pricing, availability and contents of the
errata? I need to know my devices thoroughly before I can use them in
my design. Any suggestions are welcome.
[snip]
Click to expand...

At present, there are no known errata for the XC3S1000 FPGAs. Errata for
the other Spartan-3 FPGAs is available to registered users of the Xilinx
Support web site at ...
http://www.xilinx.com/support

For pricing and availability, I would recommend contacting your local Xilinx
sales representative, listed at the following link.
http://www.xilinx.com/company/sales/ww_reps.htm#TEXAS

If I remember Texas geography correctly, Richardson is close to Dallas.

Bonser-Philhower Sales
689 W. Renner Rd., Suite 101
Richardson, TX 75080
(972) 234-8438
Fax: (972) 437-0897

Alternatively, the local Xilinx distributor should also have the same
information.
http://www.xilinx.com/company/sales/ww_disti.htm
---------------------------------
Steven K. Knapp
Applications Manager, Xilinx Inc.
General Products Division
Spartan-3/II/IIE FPGAs
http://www.xilinx.com/spartan3
---------------------------------
Spartan-3: Make it Your ASIC
 
"Steven K. Knapp" <steve.knappNO#SPAM@xilinx.com> writes:
At present, there are no known errata for the XC3S1000 FPGAs. Errata for
the other Spartan-3 FPGAs is available to registered users of the Xilinx
Support web site at ...
http://www.xilinx.com/support
Click to expand...
I'm registered, but I certainly can't find any errata there. Doing a
search for "errata" says:

Query was : errata
Your search matched 0 of 0 documents.
0 - 0 of 0 are presented, ranked by relevance.

A little more help finding it would be appreciated, as without seeing
the errata I can't tell whether the XC3S400 ES parts will be acceptable for
my design, or whether I'll have to wait for non-ES.

Thanks,
Eric
 
Aaaargh! Looks like the search function was broken. I just checked it a
few minutes ago and all was working.

To save time, here is a specific link.

How can I view errata documentation and receive an alert if it changes?
http://support.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_display.jsp?getPagePath=18815

---------------------------------
Steven K. Knapp
Applications Manager, Xilinx Inc.
General Products Division
Spartan-3/II/IIE FPGAs
http://www.xilinx.com/spartan3
---------------------------------
Spartan-3: Make it Your ASIC

"Eric Smith" <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com> wrote in message
news:qhk6wfj533.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com...
"Steven K. Knapp" <steve.knappNO#SPAM@xilinx.com> writes:
At present, there are no known errata for the XC3S1000 FPGAs. Errata
for
the other Spartan-3 FPGAs is available to registered users of the Xilinx
Support web site at ...
http://www.xilinx.com/support

I'm registered, but I certainly can't find any errata there. Doing a
search for "errata" says:

Query was : errata
Your search matched 0 of 0 documents.
0 - 0 of 0 are presented, ranked by relevance.

A little more help finding it would be appreciated, as without seeing
the errata I can't tell whether the XC3S400 ES parts will be acceptable
for
my design, or whether I'll have to wait for non-ES.

Thanks,
Eric
Click to expand...
 
Hi Steve, Hi Eric
I was trying to retrieve the errata for spartan 3 FPGAs but got this
message instead.

"Sorry...

Technical difficulties with the Xilinx.com web site have been solved.
If you are continuing to have difficulty accessing Xilinx.com, you may
need to exit your browser software and restart it. Please accept our
apologies for any difficulties you have experienced. "

I tried restarting my browser but to of no avail. Can anybody send me
the errata for Spartan 3? If there is no errata for the device
XC3s1000 FG456, is it safe to assume that the device is into
production and NOT Engineering Samples?

thanks
Krishna Kumar
 
"Krishna Kumar" <krishk24@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e23e0547.0408040741.23cc184e@posting.google.com...

[snip]

I tried restarting my browser but to of no avail. Can anybody send me
the errata for Spartan 3? If there is no errata for the device
XC3s1000 FG456, is it safe to assume that the device is into
production and NOT Engineering Samples?
Click to expand...
The errata for the XC3S1000 essentially says that there are no know issues.

I reported the problem that you encountered to our web team.

Just to be clear, the XC3S1000 is presently only available with an "ES"
marking, indicating that the devices are "Engineering Samples". The full
production release on the XC3S1000 happens later this month (August 2004).
At this stage, there is little if any difference between the two other than
the non-ES devices are fully qualified for production.
---------------------------------
Steven K. Knapp
Applications Manager, Xilinx Inc.
General Products Division
Spartan-3/II/IIE FPGAs
http://www.xilinx.com/spartan3
---------------------------------
Spartan-3: Make it Your ASIC
 
All,

Steve may not be in a position to elaborate, but I will.

"Engineering Sample" can, and does mean different things. We are
working on a way to be more communicative, but until we have a plan that
we know works, we have to wait.

In the meantime, understand that ES means different things in time.

It first means that the part has undergone a basic level of testing, for
both functionality and speed, but we have not qualified the process, not
performed the ESD testing, and do not have the guaranteed numbers in the
datasheet yet (TBD's or missing max's etc.).

That is pretty obvious: we just do not know, so we let you know what we
know (errata if any), and what we do not know.

Then, after the first part gets its all of its verification and
characterization done, but the test program isn't complete, and/or the
qualification program isn't done (it just takes time in the 'easy bake'
oven) we still have to make the part as something other than production.
This is typically 14 weeks after first announced ES. For example the
Virtex 4 LX25 is shipping ES now, and is ~ 7 weeks old. In another 7
weeks, it will be old hat, and what we know list will be very long
indeed, and what we do not know list will be at 0 items. What we don't
know that we don't know will also be a very short list, as these end up
being found by customers (so we intentionally test the daylights (and
nighlights) out of it).

After that, when parts are awaiting the final crossing of it's and
dotting of i's in the reports, it is still marked ES.

So, if I wanted to know how confident I should be about a part, I would
find out how long it has been since any part in the family first
sampled. If that is greater than 14 weeks, then I would be pretty
confident that what is disclosed (if an errata at all) is complete, and
99%+ accurate.

Once the qual report is done (available from our QA group, and posted on
the website when a part goes into production), I would be totally confident.

Austin
 
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