WTD: info on AMD palce22v10

[hamilton]

I have found a tube of these AMD parts from on old project.

AMD no longer manufactures these parts. Does anyone know who
picked up these parts from AMD ?

I am also looking for a simple programmer for these parts.

I have found $500+ programmers out on the net, but I would like
to keep it cheap.

Thanks for any info.


hamilton

 

[Jonathan Bromley]

"hamilton" <hamilton@deminsional.com> wrote in message
news:400b2ce4$1_1@omega.dimensional.com...

I have found a tube of these AMD parts from on old project.
AMD no longer manufactures these parts. Does anyone know who
picked up these parts from AMD ?

AMD spun-out its PLD lines as Vantis.

Before too long, Vantis was taken over by Lattice.

As far as I know, Lattice still offers these parts
(or something very similar).

I am also looking for a simple programmer for these parts.
I have found $500+ programmers out on the net, but I would like
to keep it cheap.

ISTR that the programming algorithm for PALCE devices was
reasonably straightforward, so you could probably do
something home-grown - maybe using some of your newly-
found PALs in its logic But in general, programmers
for PLDs were expensive with good reason - getting the
programming algorithms right is pretty tough. You may
find it's better to junk the old parts and get some
newer Lattice in-system=programmable (ISP) parts,
which can be programmed much more simply and cheaply
using a simple download cable that you can easily build
from information in their data sheets.
--

Jonathan Bromley, Consultant

DOULOS - Developing Design Know-how
VHDL * Verilog * SystemC * Perl * Tcl/Tk * Verification * Project Services

Doulos Ltd. Church Hatch, 22 Market Place, Ringwood, Hampshire, BH24 1AW, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1425 471223 mail: jonathan.bromley@doulos.com
Fax: +44 (0)1425 471573 Web: http://www.doulos.com

The contents of this message may contain personal views which
are not the views of Doulos Ltd., unless specifically stated.

 

[Peter Alfke]

The 22V10 originated at AMD (I was there!), but later became the
"standard" for high-end PALs. You can find it with anybody who (still)
makes PALs. Try Lattice, TI, NSC...
There are bipolar and CMOS versions, sharing the same functionality and
pin-out, but obviously not the programming.
The 22V10 dates back to the early 'eighties. That's 20 years ago. At my
analogy of 15 human years per 1 programmable logic year, these 22V10s
are 300-year-old "senior citizens". Using them for a new design would
be silly (inhumane?).
One cheap CPLD runs circles around several 22V10s, and CoolRunner CPLDs
consume almost no power...
Peter Alfke
========================
hamilton wrote:

I have found a tube of these AMD parts from on old project.

AMD no longer manufactures these parts. Does anyone know who
picked up these parts from AMD ?

I am also looking for a simple programmer for these parts.

I have found $500+ programmers out on the net, but I would like
to keep it cheap.

Thanks for any info.

hamilton

 

[hamilton]

Jonathan Bromley wrote:

ISTR that the programming algorithm for PALCE devices was
reasonably straightforward, so you could probably do
something home-grown - maybe using some of your newly-
found PALs in its logic

Is this algorithm documented somewhere ??

The data sheet I found does not mention any algorithm.

I have picked Atmel ATF1504 as a replacement device.

Thanks

 

[Ralph Malph]

Yeah, but can you get CPLDs in QFN packages??? Sometimes a "little"
logic goes a long way.

Too bad we can't get any sort of FPGA in a physically small package. I
could do a lot with a 100 LEs (or 50 slices) in a TQFP32/48 or a
QFN32/48. The new tiny packages are really amazing.

I know I am not alone, but it seems we are not running with the herd.



Peter Alfke wrote:

The 22V10 originated at AMD (I was there!), but later became the
"standard" for high-end PALs. You can find it with anybody who (still)
makes PALs. Try Lattice, TI, NSC...
There are bipolar and CMOS versions, sharing the same functionality and
pin-out, but obviously not the programming.
The 22V10 dates back to the early 'eighties. That's 20 years ago. At my
analogy of 15 human years per 1 programmable logic year, these 22V10s
are 300-year-old "senior citizens". Using them for a new design would
be silly (inhumane?).
One cheap CPLD runs circles around several 22V10s, and CoolRunner CPLDs
consume almost no power...
Peter Alfke
========================
hamilton wrote:

I have found a tube of these AMD parts from on old project.

AMD no longer manufactures these parts. Does anyone know who
picked up these parts from AMD ?

I am also looking for a simple programmer for these parts.

I have found $500+ programmers out on the net, but I would like
to keep it cheap.

Thanks for any info.

hamilton

 

[jim granville]

Ralph Malph wrote:

Yeah, but can you get CPLDs in QFN packages??? Sometimes a "little"
logic goes a long way.

Too bad we can't get any sort of FPGA in a physically small package. I
could do a lot with a 100 LEs (or 50 slices) in a TQFP32/48 or a
QFN32/48. The new tiny packages are really amazing.

I know I am not alone, but it seems we are not running with the herd.

All it takes is enough noise to convince the vendors to add the
smaller packages - it's not a massive investment, mainly a mindset
problem - 'We don't do that because no one buys them'.
The SPLD/CPLD market is in 'follow mode', but the Microcontrollers
and Logic have by now widely deployed QFN, and lattice have recently
added QFN in 22V10, and TQFP48 in CPLD.

So the other, more sluggish, vendors will follow eventually....
Some will claim BGA is their small package solution, but they
miss the point that cannot go onto single sided PCB.

Peter Alfke wrote:

The 22V10 originated at AMD (I was there!), but later became the
"standard" for high-end PALs. You can find it with anybody who (still)
makes PALs. Try Lattice, TI, NSC...
There are bipolar and CMOS versions, sharing the same functionality and
pin-out, but obviously not the programming.
The 22V10 dates back to the early 'eighties. That's 20 years ago. At my
analogy of 15 human years per 1 programmable logic year, these 22V10s
are 300-year-old "senior citizens". Using them for a new design would
be silly (inhumane?).

Sweeping statements are dangerous....
We still use 16V8's for new designs, because of their price/size.
Poor CPLD package offering is one problem slowing the replcaement of
22V10 : There are many sockets where your '300 year old' analogy has no
more modern physical replacement.
There are cost equivalents, but not physical equivalents, and
I call that 'a little blinkered'

-jg

 

[Raivo Nael]

I too think that FPGA-s in small packages would be great things. I
also think that this secrecy politics that programmable logic
manufacturers use, has made FPGA very imaginationless component. Look
at microcontrollers, how many different packages, architectures and so
on. And hunderds of different manufacturers.

Returning to original question - i too are interested in programmer or
programming algorithm for PALCE-s. GAL algorithms are available but
these can't be used here.

regards,
Raivo

 

[Ralph Malph]

Raivo Nael wrote:

I too think that FPGA-s in small packages would be great things. I
also think that this secrecy politics that programmable logic
manufacturers use, has made FPGA very imaginationless component. Look
at microcontrollers, how many different packages, architectures and so
on. And hunderds of different manufacturers.

That is a good point, that MCUs and FPGAs seem to be handled very
differently in the market place. I have seen several startup FPGA
companies look good and then fail. This even includes large companies
like Motorola. They talked about an FPGA line using the "Pilkington"
architecture and came very close to introduction before they shut it
down. I never did hear anything about why they turned it off.

I expect that there is a bit more NRE and maintenance for FPGA products
than there is for an MCU line. I can't really rationalize this other
than to say that FPGA software seems to require constant upgrades while
most MCU compilers are supported by a smaller team that mostly does
minor upgrades and bug fixes. Am I off base on this?
I would also say that they seem to make more changes to FPGAs when they
introduce a new family than they typically do when they come out with a
new MCU family member. Maybe that is it? MCUs normally have a new
family member, while FPGAs get entirely new families.

 

[Peter Alfke]

Ralph Malph wrote:

I have seen several startup FPGA
companies look good and then fail. This even includes large companies
like Motorola.

Here is a partial list of major companies that introduced FPGAs, and
then gave up:

Motorola (never got out of the starting gate, relied on external software...)
Intel (sold it to Altera, who then canned it quietly)
NSC (disappeared quietly)
AMD (sold it to Lattice)
ATT (sold it to Lattice)
T.I. ( stopped being second source to Actel)
Toshiba (never really made it)
Cypress (?)

The moral of the story is that you survive as an FPGA manufacturer only
when you are totally dedicated to that product line, which is true for
Xilinx, Altera, Lattice, Actel, Quicklogic and some small start-ups.
The Big Guys usually find it easier to make their money on other products.

Peter Alfke

 

[Ray Andraka]

Atmel .. still in it, but I still can't figure out why
Dynachip .. got as far as producing silicon before dying
Gatefield .. sold to was it Actel?
Concurrent Logic .. became the Atmel/NSC architecture
IBM .. got rights from the spoils of concurrent. Toyed with multi-chip module
implementations, but never really made it out of the labs
Not to mention numerous universities with academic architectures
and the list goes on...

The fact of the matter is that development tools for MCUs are a heck of a lot
easier to develop. The problem is much more constrained (limited number of
instructions and linear sequential operation) for an MCU. As I'm sure both
Xilinx and ALtera have found, the tools development is a larger effort than the
silicon architecture and design effort by a large margin. I still maintain that
FPGA companies are really software companies that just happen to have an
expensive dongle that happens to be useful to circuit designers.

Peter Alfke wrote:

Ralph Malph wrote:

I have seen several startup FPGA
companies look good and then fail. This even includes large companies
like Motorola.

Here is a partial list of major companies that introduced FPGAs, and
then gave up:

Motorola (never got out of the starting gate, relied on external software...)
Intel (sold it to Altera, who then canned it quietly)
NSC (disappeared quietly)
AMD (sold it to Lattice)
ATT (sold it to Lattice)
T.I. ( stopped being second source to Actel)
Toshiba (never really made it)
Cypress (?)

The moral of the story is that you survive as an FPGA manufacturer only
when you are totally dedicated to that product line, which is true for
Xilinx, Altera, Lattice, Actel, Quicklogic and some small start-ups.
The Big Guys usually find it easier to make their money on other products.

Peter Alfke

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email ray@andraka.com
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

 

[jim granville]

Ray Andraka wrote:

Atmel .. still in it, but I still can't figure out why
Dynachip .. got as far as producing silicon before dying
Gatefield .. sold to was it Actel?

Yes, and might yet hit critical mass - they service
a niche with true one chip FPGAs (FLASH included)

Concurrent Logic .. became the Atmel/NSC architecture
IBM .. got rights from the spoils of concurrent. Toyed with multi-chip module
implementations, but never really made it out of the labs
Not to mention numerous universities with academic architectures
and the list goes on...

Triscend anyone ?
Both the Triscend, and Atmel FPSlic must struggle against the
NIOS/MicroBlaze (etc) solutions.

The fact of the matter is that development tools for MCUs are a heck of a lot
easier to develop. The problem is much more constrained (limited number of
instructions and linear sequential operation) for an MCU. As I'm sure both
Xilinx and ALtera have found, the tools development is a larger effort than the
silicon architecture and design effort by a large margin. I still maintain that
FPGA companies are really software companies that just happen to have an
expensive dongle that happens to be useful to circuit designers.

Correct - Some stats were released last year (Altera?) showing they
employed more SW engineers than HW designers.

-jg

 

[Ralph Malph]

Peter Alfke wrote:

Ralph Malph wrote:

I have seen several startup FPGA
companies look good and then fail. This even includes large companies
like Motorola.

Here is a partial list of major companies that introduced FPGAs, and
then gave up:

Motorola (never got out of the starting gate, relied on external software...)
I don't know that it was the software that killed this product. They

were using NeoCad which was pretty successful (at least technically) for
the other vendors they supported.

Intel (sold it to Altera, who then canned it quietly)
This line was second sourced by Cypress. I can only assume that Altera

did not want to cooperate with Cypress and did not feel the need for
second sources.

NSC (disappeared quietly)

AMD (sold it to Lattice)
PLDs only AFAIK. Still being made. It was sold off not because it was

failling, but because it was successful and AMD needed cash to keep the
CPU business running.

ATT (sold it to Lattice)
ATT never wanted to be a significant player. They developed the ORCA

line to get telecoms to migrate to their ASICs. Can't say how well that
worked.

T.I. ( stopped being second source to Actel)
I don't remember then selling FPGAs or similar, they did CPLDs. TI did

a complete makeover and decided that they were all about DSP in
telecoms. They sold off everything that was not a key technology and
bought a lot of stuff that was.

Toshiba (never really made it)
I never even heard of them.

Cypress (?)
Still there. I can't say how much market share they have, but they are

selling product still.

The moral of the story is that you survive as an FPGA manufacturer only
when you are totally dedicated to that product line, which is true for
Xilinx, Altera, Lattice, Actel, Quicklogic and some small start-ups.
The Big Guys usually find it easier to make their money on other products.

You forgot Philips who's product line you bought (or at least part of
it). But being solely a PLD vendor does not guaranty success. There
are any number of PLD makers that have gone by the wayside, several of
which were bought by Xilinx, some by Altera and others got swallowed up
by the remaining players.

Heck, even the FPGA software companies are not immune to being swallowed
up. The current Xilinx tools are just the latest version of NeoCad
software I belive.

I think there is something else that is required to make it in the
FPGA/PLD world. But I think the biggest factor is just that it is a
limited market and unless you are getting 10%+ market share, it is not
worth the commitment. So a shakeout to four or five players was
inevitable.

 

[Ray Andraka]

Ralph Malph wrote:

Motorola (never got out of the starting gate, relied on external software...)
I don't know that it was the software that killed this product. They
were using NeoCad which was pretty successful (at least technically) for
the other vendors they supported.

Xilinx's purchase of Neocad was the nail in the coffin for Motorola's FPGA,
but they were going nowhere fast before that.

AMD (sold it to Lattice)
PLDs only AFAIK. Still being made. It was sold off not because it was
failling, but because it was successful and AMD needed cash to keep the
CPU business running.

AMD also had an FPGA, which they spun out under Vantis. IIRC, lattice has
the rights to that now.

T.I. ( stopped being second source to Actel)
I don't remember then selling FPGAs or similar, they did CPLDs. TI did
a complete makeover and decided that they were all about DSP in
telecoms. They sold off everything that was not a key technology and
bought a lot of stuff that was.

TI was a second source for Actel in the late 80's, early 90's.

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email ray@andraka.com
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

 

[Raivo Nael]

There is one untypical case in the history of FPGAs that no one
mentioned so far. ATT sold aproximately ten years ago Xilinx
compatible chips! Theyr datasheet said that these are pin-to-pin
replacements. Those were marked with ATT prefix and were clones of
XC3000 series chips. Afterwards Lucent Technologyes made also those
chips. Does anyone know more about the story?

I have also heard that NEC was one of those who tryed to make FPGAs...

Raivo

 

[Ralph Malph]

Raivo Nael wrote:

There is one untypical case in the history of FPGAs that no one
mentioned so far. ATT sold aproximately ten years ago Xilinx
compatible chips! Theyr datasheet said that these are pin-to-pin
replacements. Those were marked with ATT prefix and were clones of
XC3000 series chips. Afterwards Lucent Technologyes made also those
chips. Does anyone know more about the story?

I have also heard that NEC was one of those who tryed to make FPGAs...

I thought Peter mentioned ATT. ATT semi became Lucent who by then was
making a new chip more like the 4000 family with Sync RAM in the LUT.
Seems they bought rights to the various patents on the 4000 and decided
to not do the clone thing, but rather to branch out and differentiate
themselves. Their new product became known as ORCA and spawned three or
so generations all of which was sold to Lattice. I used some of the 2C
and 3C parts on a board I built. But, once again, it was the lack of
good software or support that made me drop them. Their chip editor tool
really sucked and the rest was not so good. So they went with NeoCad
for their official tool. When NeoCad was bought by Xilinx all the
current customers had rights to the source code and had to do their own
maintenance and upgrades just like Xilinx was doing. I guess Xilinx
figured this "leveled" the playing field. In reality, it leveled the
competition.

One really good point that was lost when NeoCad was bought, was the fact
that you could use one tool and target mulitple vendor's chips. Now we
have HDL which allows the same thing if you buy each back end tool.

 

[Peter Alfke]

Xilinx selected ATT as a legitimate second source for XC3000 ( such
things seemed to be important in those days), with the hope of speeding
up the XC4000 project.
When this did not work out and relationships soured, ATT came out with
ORCA in competition with XC4000. All this later ended up with Lattice.

Another lesson:
FPGAs do not transplant well from one manufacturer to the other
( see Altera-to-Cypress, Actel-to-T.I., Xilinx-to-MMI, before it got
swallowed by AMD, Xilinx-to-ATT. The judgement is still out on
AMD-to-Lattice, and ATT-to-Lattice )

Lots of blood on the battlefield..
And fast progress and happy customers !

Peter Alfke.
==================
Raivo Nael wrote:

There is one untypical case in the history of FPGAs that no one
mentioned so far. ATT sold aproximately ten years ago Xilinx
compatible chips! Theyr datasheet said that these are pin-to-pin
replacements. Those were marked with ATT prefix and were clones of
XC3000 series chips. Afterwards Lucent Technologyes made also those
chips. Does anyone know more about the story?

I have also heard that NEC was one of those who tryed to make FPGAs...

Raivo

 

[Raivo Nael]

As much as i know ATT never made their own software for Xilinx
compatible chips. Why? Do they considered it too costly or got only
rights to deal with silicon, not the soft?

It seems to me that in this case software problems were reasons why
ATT droped this product line. As soon as Xilinx ceased to support 3000
series, ATT chips also became useless.

Interesting to know what happened first: ATT deciding that 3000 is too
oldfashioned to make profit of it or Xilinx droping non-A series
support and so making ATT chips useless?

Raivo


Peter Alfke <peter@xilinx.com> wrote in message news:<40108AB0.D7471363@xilinx.com>...

Xilinx selected ATT as a legitimate second source for XC3000 ( such
things seemed to be important in those days), with the hope of speeding
up the XC4000 project.
When this did not work out and relationships soured, ATT came out with
ORCA in competition with XC4000. All this later ended up with Lattice.

Another lesson:
FPGAs do not transplant well from one manufacturer to the other
( see Altera-to-Cypress, Actel-to-T.I., Xilinx-to-MMI, before it got
swallowed by AMD, Xilinx-to-ATT. The judgement is still out on
AMD-to-Lattice, and ATT-to-Lattice )

Lots of blood on the battlefield..
And fast progress and happy customers !

Peter Alfke.
==================
Raivo Nael wrote:

There is one untypical case in the history of FPGAs that no one
mentioned so far. ATT sold aproximately ten years ago Xilinx
compatible chips! Theyr datasheet said that these are pin-to-pin
replacements. Those were marked with ATT prefix and were clones of
XC3000 series chips. Afterwards Lucent Technologyes made also those
chips. Does anyone know more about the story?

I have also heard that NEC was one of those who tryed to make FPGAs...

Raivo

 

[Ralph Malph]

Raivo Nael wrote:

As much as i know ATT never made their own software for Xilinx
compatible chips. Why? Do they considered it too costly or got only
rights to deal with silicon, not the soft?

It seems to me that in this case software problems were reasons why
ATT droped this product line. As soon as Xilinx ceased to support 3000
series, ATT chips also became useless.

Interesting to know what happened first: ATT deciding that 3000 is too
oldfashioned to make profit of it or Xilinx droping non-A series
support and so making ATT chips useless?

I don't think Xilinx "dropped" the XC3000 family, they still sell them
today, AFAIK. They don't provide design software unless you really need
it. I believe someone posted here recently that they needed this
software and they got help to reach the right person at Xilinx for
this.

But you may be partly right about them dropping support for the 3000 to
cut ATT out of *new* Xilinx business. But then with *every* new
generation, all the FPGA companies want you to design in the latest
parts rather than the old ones. They know the competition also has new
parts and the old ones won't get design wins... mostly.

In one case, Altera has a part that is still fully supported for new
designs and has full 5 volt tolerance without having high startup
current issues. I don't think Xilinx has any current parts like that.
So I guess an old part could get a design win over even the latest parts
since they no longer have 5 volt tolerance (they almost don't have 3
volt tolerance).