Xilinx or Altera

[Simon]

Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

- Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
- Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
- Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
- Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

 

[Gabor]

Simon wrote:

Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

- Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
- Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
- Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
- Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

Xilinx has a new approach to supplying software with demo boards. Read
the fine print with your board, but generally what you get is a license
to use the full EDK (Microblaze development software), which is
otherwise quite expensive. This license is good for one computer
(node-locked) *and* also locked to the particular Xilinx device on your
demo board.

There's nothing to stop you from using it on your own hardware, provided
you choose the same chip. Any other cores provided are also licensed
for use on that particular chip. I'm not familiar enough with Spartan
6 to know if you would normally pay for the PCIe license, but on the
Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper"
core is free. Ditto for the ethernet MAC block wrappers. The Ethernet
TriMode soft MAC is not free.

For very simple MicroBlaze-based designs there is a "simple MicroBlaze"
pre-built core available at no charge, with very limited connectivity.
You can use this wih the SDK without the need for the EDK. However
as soon as you want to build a processor with external memory and/or
network connectivity you need to pony up for the EDK.

As far as I know, all of the Xilinx licenses are not time limited for
use, but do have a time limit for maintenance (includes upgrades to
the latest version - not always a blessing). The renewal fee for
maintenance is almost the same as a new license. You also get
webcase support while under maintenance. After that you're back to
trolling forums with the students.

-- Gabor

 

[Michael]

Hi,

On 06/16/11 11:38 PM, Gabor wrote:

Simon wrote:
Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

- Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
- Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
- Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
- Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

Xilinx has a new approach to supplying software with demo boards. Read
the fine print with your board, but generally what you get is a license
to use the full EDK (Microblaze development software), which is
otherwise quite expensive. This license is good for one computer
(node-locked) *and* also locked to the particular Xilinx device on your
demo board.

There's nothing to stop you from using it on your own hardware, provided
you choose the same chip. Any other cores provided are also licensed
for use on that particular chip. I'm not familiar enough with Spartan
6 to know if you would normally pay for the PCIe license, but on the
Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper"
core is free. Ditto for the ethernet MAC block wrappers. The Ethernet
TriMode soft MAC is not free.

For very simple MicroBlaze-based designs there is a "simple MicroBlaze"
pre-built core available at no charge, with very limited connectivity.
You can use this wih the SDK without the need for the EDK. However
as soon as you want to build a processor with external memory and/or
network connectivity you need to pony up for the EDK.

As far as I know, all of the Xilinx licenses are not time limited for
use, but do have a time limit for maintenance (includes upgrades to
the latest version - not always a blessing). The renewal fee for
maintenance is almost the same as a new license. You also get
webcase support while under maintenance. After that you're back to
trolling forums with the students.

-- Gabor

I have not check this up now but IIRC, Xilinx license is for new designs
for one year but after one year you need to purchase a new license for
new designs but you can maintain
old designs for a unlimited time.

 

[Ed McGettigan]

On Jun 16, 2:38 pm, Gabor <ga...@szakacs.invalid> wrote:

Simon wrote:
Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

 - Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
 - Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
 - Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
 - Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

Xilinx has a new approach to supplying software with demo boards.  Read
the fine print with your board, but generally what you get is a license
to use the full EDK (Microblaze development software), which is
otherwise quite expensive.  This license is good for one computer
(node-locked) *and* also locked to the particular Xilinx device on your
demo board.

There's nothing to stop you from using it on your own hardware, provided
you choose the same chip.  Any other cores provided are also licensed
for use on that particular chip.  I'm not familiar enough with Spartan
6 to know if you would normally pay for the PCIe license, but on the
Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper"
core is free.  Ditto for the ethernet MAC block wrappers.  The Ethernet
TriMode soft MAC is not free.

For very simple MicroBlaze-based designs there is a "simple MicroBlaze"
pre-built core available at no charge, with very limited connectivity.
You can use this wih the SDK without the need for the EDK.  However
as soon as you want to build a processor with external memory and/or
network connectivity you need to pony up for the EDK.

As far as I know, all of the Xilinx licenses are not time limited for
use, but do have a time limit for maintenance (includes upgrades to
the latest version - not always a blessing).  The renewal fee for
maintenance is almost the same as a new license.  You also get
webcase support while under maintenance.  After that you're back to
trolling forums with the students.

-- Gabor- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm not familiar enough with Spartan 6 to know if you would normally
pay for the PCIe license, but on the Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in
PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper" core is free

Spartan-6 devices also include an integrated PCIe block so there is no
extra license cost.

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.

 

[Simon]

On Jun 17, 7:33 am, Ed McGettigan <ed.mcgetti...@xilinx.com> wrote:

On Jun 16, 2:38 pm, Gabor <ga...@szakacs.invalid> wrote:





Simon wrote:
Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

 - Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
 - Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
 - Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
 - Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

Xilinx has a new approach to supplying software with demo boards.  Read
the fine print with your board, but generally what you get is a license
to use the full EDK (Microblaze development software), which is
otherwise quite expensive.  This license is good for one computer
(node-locked) *and* also locked to the particular Xilinx device on your
demo board.

There's nothing to stop you from using it on your own hardware, provided
you choose the same chip.  Any other cores provided are also licensed
for use on that particular chip.  I'm not familiar enough with Spartan
6 to know if you would normally pay for the PCIe license, but on the
Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper"
core is free.  Ditto for the ethernet MAC block wrappers.  The Ethernet
TriMode soft MAC is not free.

For very simple MicroBlaze-based designs there is a "simple MicroBlaze"
pre-built core available at no charge, with very limited connectivity.
You can use this wih the SDK without the need for the EDK.  However
as soon as you want to build a processor with external memory and/or
network connectivity you need to pony up for the EDK.

As far as I know, all of the Xilinx licenses are not time limited for
use, but do have a time limit for maintenance (includes upgrades to
the latest version - not always a blessing).  The renewal fee for
maintenance is almost the same as a new license.  You also get
webcase support while under maintenance.  After that you're back to
trolling forums with the students.

-- Gabor- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
I'm not familiar enough with Spartan 6 to know if you would normally
pay for the PCIe license, but on the Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in
PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper" core is free

Spartan-6 devices also include an integrated PCIe block so there is no
extra license cost.

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.

Thanks Ed, (and everyone else). Looks like I'll be getting one of the
embedded kits then. Everyone wins, because as soon as I actually pay
for it, the Zynq or -7 series will immediately be available... That's
just the way it goes

Cheers
Simon

 

[Chopper]

Simon,

I have been through a similar exercise recently -

Avnet has the EK-S6-SP605-G listed as in stock at $495....rather than
$695...

However, I ended up purchasing an EBV DB4CGX15 Altera Cyclone IV pcie
development board, online from www.devboards.de , for 133 euros (around
$190) - this provides similar functionality with a similar deal to the
SP605. Maybe worth a look...although a lot depends on the detail of what
you want to do with the card..

Regards,
Tom C.


"Simon" <google@gornall.net> wrote in message
news:7beafd0e-b915-4e67-9b4c-3fe7c8bb741c@k15g2000pri.googlegroups.com...

Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

- Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
- Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
- Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
- Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

 

[scrts]

However, I ended up purchasing an EBV DB4CGX15 Altera Cyclone IV pcie
development board, online from www.devboards.de , for 133 euros (around
$190) - this provides similar functionality with a similar deal to the
SP605. Maybe worth a look...although a lot depends on the detail of what
you want to do with the card..

Did they fix the RAM address bug? Afaik 256mb memory was actually smaller -
32mb, because they did not connect last address pins.

 

[Simon]

On Jun 19, 12:59 pm, "Chopper" <Chop...@gymrat.force9.co.uk> wrote:

Simon,

I have been through a similar exercise recently -

Avnet has the EK-S6-SP605-G listed as in stock at $495....rather than
$695...

Yep, but thats the 'Evaluation kit' not the 'Embedded evaluation kit'.
You get the EDK for $200 if you go for the embedded version.

However, I ended up purchasing an EBV DB4CGX15 Altera Cyclone IV pcie
development board, online fromwww.devboards.de,  for 133 euros (around
$190) - this provides similar functionality with a similar deal to the
SP605.  Maybe worth a look...although a lot depends on the detail of what
you want to do with the card..

I saw it, and it's tempting for the price, but there weren't enough I/
O pins for what I need I did consider using a CPLD as a port-
expander-type-of-thing, but in the end I think the 605 will be a lot
easier...

Cheers

Simon

 

[Chopper]

The RAM size is still 32Mb. Devboards committed most of the FPGA outputs to
a user accessible header (and didn't have the nous to make two additional
bits jumper selectable, so they could be used either for RAM address or for
header pin use. That's not a major problem in my immediate application, as I
am using the board simply as a pcie I/O test bed, part of a larger design,
and am relaying the circuit, together with other devices, as part of a
larger PCB, now that I am happy with the pcie sustained transfer rates
(under busmaster DMA) and the SERDES throughput the Cyclone IV can sustain
through the pcie port.


"scrts" <hidden@email.com> wrote in message
news:itmlah$icb$1@dont-email.me...

However, I ended up purchasing an EBV DB4CGX15 Altera Cyclone IV pcie
development board, online from www.devboards.de , for 133 euros (around
$190) - this provides similar functionality with a similar deal to the
SP605. Maybe worth a look...although a lot depends on the detail of what
you want to do with the card..


Did they fix the RAM address bug? Afaik 256mb memory was actually
smaller - 32mb, because they did not connect last address pins.

 

[scrts]

I saw it, and it's tempting for the price, but there weren't enough I/
O pins for what I need I did consider using a CPLD as a port-
expander-type-of-thing, but in the end I think the 605 will be a lot
easier...

Maybe You're interested in other manufacturers? E.g. Lattice offers ECP3
FPGA devkit with transceivers and PCI-e connection, plus 1Gb DDR3 memory and
two gigabit network transceivers for 99$.
http://www.latticesemi.com/products/developmenthardware/developmentkits/ecp3versadevelopmentkit/index.cfm

Afaik software tools are also OK from Lattice, since they use Synplify for
synthesis. Anyway, check it out, seems like very good price for such board.

 

[Tom Johnson]

On Jun 18, 11:31 am, Simon <goo...@gornall.net> wrote:

On Jun 17, 7:33 am, Ed McGettigan <ed.mcgetti...@xilinx.com> wrote:





On Jun 16, 2:38 pm, Gabor <ga...@szakacs.invalid> wrote:

Simon wrote:
Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

 - Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
 - Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
 - Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
 - Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

Xilinx has a new approach to supplying software with demo boards.  Read
the fine print with your board, but generally what you get is a license
to use the full EDK (Microblaze development software), which is
otherwise quite expensive.  This license is good for one computer
(node-locked) *and* also locked to the particular Xilinx device on your
demo board.

There's nothing to stop you from using it on your own hardware, provided
you choose the same chip.  Any other cores provided are also licensed
for use on that particular chip.  I'm not familiar enough with Spartan
6 to know if you would normally pay for the PCIe license, but on the
Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper"
core is free.  Ditto for the ethernet MAC block wrappers.  The Ethernet
TriMode soft MAC is not free.

For very simple MicroBlaze-based designs there is a "simple MicroBlaze"
pre-built core available at no charge, with very limited connectivity..
You can use this wih the SDK without the need for the EDK.  However
as soon as you want to build a processor with external memory and/or
network connectivity you need to pony up for the EDK.

As far as I know, all of the Xilinx licenses are not time limited for
use, but do have a time limit for maintenance (includes upgrades to
the latest version - not always a blessing).  The renewal fee for
maintenance is almost the same as a new license.  You also get
webcase support while under maintenance.  After that you're back to
trolling forums with the students.

-- Gabor- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
I'm not familiar enough with Spartan 6 to know if you would normally
pay for the PCIe license, but on the Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in
PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper" core is free

Spartan-6 devices also include an integrated PCIe block so there is no
extra license cost.

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.

Thanks Ed, (and everyone else). Looks like I'll be getting one of the
embedded kits then. Everyone wins, because as soon as I actually pay
for it, the Zynq or -7 series will immediately be available... That's
just the way it goes

Cheers
   Simon- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Simon and all, not available at the moment but hopefully soon is a
family of boards my company is working on that may help avoid the
old... "That's just the way it goes". The concept provides virtual
pin-compatibility between FPGAs so one can switch between Xilinx,
Altera, or others, as well as upgrade to their newer technologies when
available. Bascially, a main board will have all the bells and
whistles you'd find on most full featured dev boards (ie., HDMI, USB,
UART, etc), but a high density/performance 'socket' for an FPGA
specific daughter card.

On the down-side there will be some degradation to the FPGA's
performance, IO count, and a few features due to the connectorization
but surprisingly not much. On the up-side, one can get much more
milleage out of a full-featured main board that's not tied to a
particular FPGA technology. The cost will be more if compared to an
existing eval board (at least till volumes grow) but the extra value
comes from the flexibility that makes our family of boards a better
investment. There are other benefits such as 'bake-off' benchmarking
and even choosing to use the FPGA daughter cards in production
(thereby designing in the same flexibility to a customer's end
product). This gets a little disruptive and may be another step
toward commoditizing FPGAs but, ... "that's just the way it goes "

There're usually many detailed questions but in general, does this
sound like something of interest. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[Simon]

On Jun 20, 12:50 pm, "scrts" <mailsoc@[remove@here]gmail.com> wrote:

Maybe You're interested in other manufacturers? E.g. Lattice offers ECP3
FPGA devkit with transceivers and PCI-e connection, plus 1Gb DDR3 memory and
two gigabit network transceivers for 99$.http://www.latticesemi.com/products/developmenthardware/developmentki...

I did see that too, and yes, it's really tempting (for me, it'd be ~
$300 for the board + IP modules I'd want - PCIe + network), but
there's a couple of problems:

- It's not clear that the mico32 processor (which appears to be free,
itself) will support DDR3 - it only claims support for DDR/DDR2 on the
web-page

- The license only runs for a year, and I don't know how aggressively
Lattice enforces that. It looks as though you really can't make any
new projects after that first year.

- Once this years license expires, the IP will probably cost $995/
year thereafter, unless the promotion is still running a year later,
which seems unlikely.

I'm not really too worried about the first of these - I'd expect
Lattice to support their boards. The second and third are a concern
though. For most people on here, a year's license is fine. You'll all
be upgrading hardware/software sufficiently often for business reasons
that it's really not an issue. For hobbyists like me though, splashing
the cash happens only once every 2 or 3 years - it's just too
expensive otherwise. Xilinx seems to have a more-friendly-to-the-
hobbyist approach - from reading their licensing faq:

"License expiration for Xilinx software and IP licenses is as follows:
- WebPACK, purchased SW and purchased IP licenses never expire, but
only enable the set of software and IP versions released before or
during your warranty period.
- Evaluation and trial licenses for software expire 30 days from the
day they were generated.
- Hardware evaluation IP license key expiration is four months
starting in 11.1
- LogiCORE IP licenses which require no fee do not expire and full
LogiCORE IP licenses which you purchase do not expire. However, full
license keys only enable versions of the IP core released during or
prior to your 1-year warranty period. To access new IP versions and
associated enhancements and bug fixes after your initial 1-year
warranty period expires, you must renew your support contract
annually.
"

So, according to that, and assuming the board/sw falls into the first
category, I get to keep *using* what I've bought until I buy something
new. I just run out of maintenance after the year. Over the 2 or 3
years this board will have to last for, that makes the '605 the better
purchase, even if it's more up-front.

Simon.

 

[John Miles]

On Jun 21, 6:04 am, Tom Johnson <digdesignc...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jun 18, 11:31 am, Simon <goo...@gornall.net> wrote:









On Jun 17, 7:33 am, Ed McGettigan <ed.mcgetti...@xilinx.com> wrote:

On Jun 16, 2:38 pm, Gabor <ga...@szakacs.invalid> wrote:

Simon wrote:
Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

 - Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
 - Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
 - Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
 - Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

Xilinx has a new approach to supplying software with demo boards.  Read
the fine print with your board, but generally what you get is a license
to use the full EDK (Microblaze development software), which is
otherwise quite expensive.  This license is good for one computer
(node-locked) *and* also locked to the particular Xilinx device on your
demo board.

There's nothing to stop you from using it on your own hardware, provided
you choose the same chip.  Any other cores provided are also licensed
for use on that particular chip.  I'm not familiar enough with Spartan
6 to know if you would normally pay for the PCIe license, but on the
Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper"
core is free.  Ditto for the ethernet MAC block wrappers.  The Ethernet
TriMode soft MAC is not free.

For very simple MicroBlaze-based designs there is a "simple MicroBlaze"
pre-built core available at no charge, with very limited connectivity.
You can use this wih the SDK without the need for the EDK.  However
as soon as you want to build a processor with external memory and/or
network connectivity you need to pony up for the EDK.

As far as I know, all of the Xilinx licenses are not time limited for
use, but do have a time limit for maintenance (includes upgrades to
the latest version - not always a blessing).  The renewal fee for
maintenance is almost the same as a new license.  You also get
webcase support while under maintenance.  After that you're back to
trolling forums with the students.

-- Gabor- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
I'm not familiar enough with Spartan 6 to know if you would normally
pay for the PCIe license, but on the Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in
PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper" core is free

Spartan-6 devices also include an integrated PCIe block so there is no
extra license cost.

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.

Thanks Ed, (and everyone else). Looks like I'll be getting one of the
embedded kits then. Everyone wins, because as soon as I actually pay
for it, the Zynq or -7 series will immediately be available... That's
just the way it goes

Cheers
   Simon- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Simon and all, not available at the moment but hopefully soon is a
family of boards my company is working on that may help avoid the
old...  "That's just the way it goes".  The concept provides virtual
pin-compatibility between FPGAs so one can switch between Xilinx,
Altera, or others, as well as upgrade to their newer technologies when
available.  Bascially, a main board will have all the bells and
whistles you'd find on most full featured dev boards (ie., HDMI, USB,
UART, etc), but a high density/performance 'socket' for an FPGA
specific daughter card.

On the down-side there will be some degradation to the FPGA's
performance, IO count, and a few features due to the connectorization
but surprisingly not much.  On the up-side, one can get much more
milleage out of a full-featured main board that's not tied to a
particular FPGA technology.  The cost will be more if compared to an
existing eval board (at least till volumes grow) but the extra value
comes from the flexibility that makes our family of boards a better
investment.  There are other benefits such as 'bake-off' benchmarking
and even choosing to use the FPGA daughter cards in production
(thereby designing in the same flexibility to a customer's end
product).  This gets a little disruptive and may be another step
toward commoditizing FPGAs but, ...  "that's just the way it goes "

There're usually many detailed questions but in general, does this
sound like something of interest.  Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom

I'd definitely be in favor of this kind of effort. IMHO, FPGA
development/integration boards are generally too 'integrated' (and
hence too expensive), considering that many users have no need for
bells and whistles apart from their desire to stay out of the BGA/
multilayer PCB business. A line of low-cost daughterboards with
nothing on them but medium-speed I/O connectivity, power management,
and the FPGA itself would be welcome. Maybe some pads for an optional
DRAM chip.

 

[John Adair]

To some extent we already do some this in our boards and there will be
some products announced shortly that will some of the way we are
going. The question of cost is always a difficult one and the dev
board market isn't usually large numbers and makes it difficult to do
consumer level pricing.

On the Xilinx/Altera comparision we have our Raggedstone2
http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/raggedstone/raggedstone2.html and
Raggedtone3 http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/raggedstone/raggedstone3.html
which offer which offer nearly the same thing in the competing
technologies. In reality it's a ding dong battle. On these 2 boards
Altera wins on the PCIe by offering X4 PCIe hard core whilst Xilinx
offers DDR3 and a hard core controller for it. The Xilinx Quad SPI
generally is much simpler (coming soon in RS2 with XC6SLX150T
versions) but slightly slower than using a loader circuit that we
deploy on Raggedstone3 to meet configuration time targets is another
difference. After that it is down to the development software.

For a low cost hardware target comparision have a look at our
Polmmaddie family http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/polmaddie/polmaddie_family.html.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On Jun 22, 3:27 am, John Miles <jmi...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jun 21, 6:04 am, Tom Johnson <digdesignc...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Jun 18, 11:31 am, Simon <goo...@gornall.net> wrote:

On Jun 17, 7:33 am, Ed McGettigan <ed.mcgetti...@xilinx.com> wrote:

On Jun 16, 2:38 pm, Gabor <ga...@szakacs.invalid> wrote:

Simon wrote:
Hopefully not sparking any religious wars here, but hoping for some
advice from those-who-know

I switched to using Altera's software a couple of years ago, because
it felt more intuitive to me - probably a personal thing, but it just
grocked better; however, I was browsing the xilinx site just recently,
idly wondering if the -7 series that I'd heard so much about had
actually arrived yet (big surprise, it's still vapour-ware to the
likes of me), and I saw the SP605 evaluation kit had dropped to $695.

This seems to be a really great deal. You get a nice high-bandwidth-
memory card, with a PCI-e interface, and high-speed external
connections (ok, only 68/34 pins, but still), as well as a full (even
if device-locked) ISE license for both the EDK and ISE. My innate
cynicism asks "what's the catch ?"

So, I thought I'd access the wisdom of crowds ([grin] on the first
pass, that read: wisdom of crows and ask:

 - Do you actually get a real, useful, not time-limited or anything
like that PCIe core ?
 - Ditto for the DDR memory core ?
 - Ditto for the Microblaze core ?
 - Does "lite" mean the ethernet-lite core "only' does 10/100 rather
than 10/100/1000 ?

It seems to suggest in the docs that the answers to the above are
{yes, yes, yes, yes}, but that seems too good to be true. Over in
Altera-land I'd be paying $500 for the nios2 license, and $1000 for
the memory/ethernet cores, both on top of a board-cost... I'm halfway
through a project that uses a nios2 qsys-based system, and for the ~
$1000 difference, I'm happy to port it back to Xilinx (this is a
hobby, the cost/benefit analysis is different to most people's on here
- y'all don't have the 'WAF' (wife-approval factor) to consider, and
WAF trumps pretty much all

I understand that if I ever wanted to target something other than an
LX45T I'd have to re-purchase the software. Does that apply to the EDK
as well as ISE ? Or could I use the EDK that comes with the kit in
tandem with WebPack to target a smaller device ?

Cheers

Simon

Xilinx has a new approach to supplying software with demo boards.  Read
the fine print with your board, but generally what you get is a license
to use the full EDK (Microblaze development software), which is
otherwise quite expensive.  This license is good for one computer
(node-locked) *and* also locked to the particular Xilinx device on your
demo board.

There's nothing to stop you from using it on your own hardware, provided
you choose the same chip.  Any other cores provided are also licensed
for use on that particular chip.  I'm not familiar enough with Spartan
6 to know if you would normally pay for the PCIe license, but on the
Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper"
core is free.  Ditto for the ethernet MAC block wrappers.  The Ethernet
TriMode soft MAC is not free.

For very simple MicroBlaze-based designs there is a "simple MicroBlaze"
pre-built core available at no charge, with very limited connectivity.
You can use this wih the SDK without the need for the EDK.  However
as soon as you want to build a processor with external memory and/or
network connectivity you need to pony up for the EDK.

As far as I know, all of the Xilinx licenses are not time limited for
use, but do have a time limit for maintenance (includes upgrades to
the latest version - not always a blessing).  The renewal fee for
maintenance is almost the same as a new license.  You also get
webcase support while under maintenance.  After that you're back to
trolling forums with the students.

-- Gabor- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
I'm not familiar enough with Spartan 6 to know if you would normally
pay for the PCIe license, but on the Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in
PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper" core is free

Spartan-6 devices also include an integrated PCIe block so there is no
extra license cost.

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.

Thanks Ed, (and everyone else). Looks like I'll be getting one of the
embedded kits then. Everyone wins, because as soon as I actually pay
for it, the Zynq or -7 series will immediately be available... That's
just the way it goes

Cheers
   Simon- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Simon and all, not available at the moment but hopefully soon is a
family of boards my company is working on that may help avoid the
old...  "That's just the way it goes".  The concept provides virtual
pin-compatibility between FPGAs so one can switch between Xilinx,
Altera, or others, as well as upgrade to their newer technologies when
available.  Bascially, a main board will have all the bells and
whistles you'd find on most full featured dev boards (ie., HDMI, USB,
UART, etc), but a high density/performance 'socket' for an FPGA
specific daughter card.

On the down-side there will be some degradation to the FPGA's
performance, IO count, and a few features due to the connectorization
but surprisingly not much.  On the up-side, one can get much more
milleage out of a full-featured main board that's not tied to a
particular FPGA technology.  The cost will be more if compared to an
existing eval board (at least till volumes grow) but the extra value
comes from the flexibility that makes our family of boards a better
investment.  There are other benefits such as 'bake-off' benchmarking
and even choosing to use the FPGA daughter cards in production
(thereby designing in the same flexibility to a customer's end
product).  This gets a little disruptive and may be another step
toward commoditizing FPGAs but, ...  "that's just the way it goes "

There're usually many detailed questions but in general, does this
sound like something of interest.  Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom

I'd definitely be in favor of this kind of effort.  IMHO, FPGA
development/integration boards are generally too 'integrated' (and
hence too expensive), considering that many users have no need for
bells and whistles apart from their desire to stay out of the BGA/
multilayer PCB business.  A line of low-cost daughterboards with
nothing on them but medium-speed I/O connectivity, power management,
and the FPGA itself would be welcome.  Maybe some pads for an optional
DRAM chip.

 

[Simon]

On Jun 21, 11:57 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:

To some extent we already do some this in our boards and there will be
some products announced shortly that will some of the way we are
going. The question of cost is always a difficult one and the dev
board market isn't usually large numbers and makes it difficult to do
consumer level pricing.

On the Xilinx/Altera comparision we have our Raggedstone2http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/raggedstone/raggedstone2.htmland
Raggedtone3http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/raggedstone/raggedstone3.html
which offer which offer nearly the same thing in the competing
technologies. In reality it's a ding dong battle. On these 2 boards
Altera wins on the PCIe by offering X4 PCIe hard core whilst Xilinx
offers DDR3 and a hard core controller for it. The Xilinx Quad SPI
generally is much simpler (coming soon in RS2 with XC6SLX150T
versions) but slightly slower than using a loader circuit that we
deploy on Raggedstone3 to meet configuration time targets is another
difference. After that it is down to the development software.

For a low cost hardware target comparision have a look at our
Polmmaddie familyhttp://www.enterpoint.co.uk/polmaddie/polmaddie_family.html.

I looked at your boards, John, because I'd *really* like a x4 PCIe for
the co-processor card, but when I went to see if the raggedstone3
board was available, the shop page failed to load (it's just a blank
white page). I tried it on Safari and on Firefox before giving up.

The thing is that even if I get one of the third-party boards, I won't
get an embedded-cpu license for free, and I'm sort of considering the
board to be pretty-much free and I'm paying for the IP when I buy a
vendor board... If I were to buy a 3rd-party board, I have to buy the
IP (in this case the EDK | NIOS2/DDR) as well...

Simon.

 

[John Adair]

Simon

The board isn't properly live on our shop as yet. We are still
completing the qualification tests on this board and that testing is
now nearly complete. The board design looks very good so far and at
the moment it looks like Issue1 will ship without mods or alteration
of the design. Realistically I think they should be available in small
numbers in about 4-8 weeks time assuming no major issues are found
with a significant ramp in numbers the month or two behind that.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On Jun 22, 3:47 pm, Simon <goo...@gornall.net> wrote:

On Jun 21, 11:57 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:



To some extent we already do some this in our boards and there will be
some products announced shortly that will some of the way we are
going. The question of cost is always a difficult one and the dev
board market isn't usually large numbers and makes it difficult to do
consumer level pricing.

On the Xilinx/Altera comparision we have our Raggedstone2http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/raggedstone/raggedstone2.htmland
Raggedtone3http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/raggedstone/raggedstone3.html
which offer which offer nearly the same thing in the competing
technologies. In reality it's a ding dong battle. On these 2 boards
Altera wins on the PCIe by offering X4 PCIe hard core whilst Xilinx
offers DDR3 and a hard core controller for it. The Xilinx Quad SPI
generally is much simpler (coming soon in RS2 with XC6SLX150T
versions) but slightly slower than using a loader circuit that we
deploy on Raggedstone3 to meet configuration time targets is another
difference. After that it is down to the development software.

For a low cost hardware target comparision have a look at our
Polmmaddie familyhttp://www.enterpoint.co.uk/polmaddie/polmaddie_family..html.

I looked at your boards, John, because I'd *really* like a x4 PCIe for
the co-processor card, but when I went to see if the raggedstone3
board was available, the shop page failed to load (it's just a blank
white page). I tried it on Safari and on Firefox before giving up.

The thing is that even if I get one of the third-party boards, I won't
get an embedded-cpu license for free, and I'm sort of considering the
board to be pretty-much free and I'm paying for the IP when I buy a
vendor board... If I were to buy a 3rd-party board, I have to buy the
IP (in this case the EDK | NIOS2/DDR) as well...

Simon.