Xilinx Spartan-3 Supply Issues?

[Gordon]

Hi all,

Hoping for a little bit of insight from all of you: We're currently
looking at implementing a small, low-cost PLD implementation on one of
our products -- managed Ethernet switch.

As Xilinx and Altera are fighting tooth and nail to get in, it's
difficult to discern who is telling the truth. The most bothering of
all are rumours that Xilinx has yet to perfect the 90um fab, and has
dumped IBM as one of their 90um suppliers (and are left with just one
fab). As a result customers have been waiting and waiting for parts.

Is this true at all? We're looking at the Spartan-3 3S50ES part.
Another rumour is that other customers have yet to receive production
versions of this part, and have actually be shipped 3S50JES parts
(where the J is indicative of a stripped down ram-less, DLL-less,
non-3.3V compatible part).

This is concerning as we require 3.3V compatibility. Anyone here have
any similar experiences or can tell otherwise?

TIA,

Gordon Lau
Hardware Designer
RuggedCom Inc.

 

[Symon]

I expect their 90um fab is fine. It's the 90nm fib that I'd worry about...
cheers, Syms.
"Gordon" <elf_ster@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4a2e9945.0408031133.2ec1e29f@posting.google.com...

As Xilinx and Altera are fighting tooth and nail to get in, it's
difficult to discern who is telling the truth. The most bothering of
all are rumours that Xilinx has yet to perfect the 90um fab, and has
dumped IBM as one of their 90um suppliers (and are left with just one
fab). As a result customers have been waiting and waiting for parts.

 

[Steven K. Knapp]

"Gordon" <elf_ster@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4a2e9945.0408031133.2ec1e29f@posting.google.com...

Hi all,

[snip]

As Xilinx and Altera are fighting tooth and nail to get in, it's
difficult to discern who is telling the truth. The most bothering of
all are rumours that Xilinx has yet to perfect the 90um fab, and has
dumped IBM as one of their 90um suppliers (and are left with just one
fab). As a result customers have been waiting and waiting for parts.

I see that our friendly competitor's spin machine has been at it again.

UMC (not IBM) is and always was the primary manufacturing facility for
Spartan-3 FPGAs. It is true that other Xilinx product lines used IBM as a
production line and that Xilinx built some initial Spartan-3 FPGA
engineering samples at IBM but there is no connection between IBM and
Spartan-3 FPGA production. Xilinx will likely be in production on 90 nm for
4 quarters and 2M+ units before the nearest competitor.

Xilinx has shipped over 600K Spartan-3 FPGAs to date, mostly to fulfill some
initial high-volume customers. This quarter, Xilinx will produce another
600K+ units and will stock distributors with Spartan-3 FPGAs in about 3
weeks. By the end of September, there should be relatively good inventories
up through the XC3S1500. The XC3S200 and XC3S400 are in full production now
with the XC3S50, XC3S1000, and XC3S1500 starting production this month. The
XC3S2000 through XC3S5000 will be available 1H05.

Is this true at all? We're looking at the Spartan-3 3S50ES part.
Another rumour is that other customers have yet to receive production
versions of this part, and have actually be shipped 3S50JES parts
(where the J is indicative of a stripped down ram-less, DLL-less,
non-3.3V compatible part).

This is concerning as we require 3.3V compatibility. Anyone here have
any similar experiences or can tell otherwise?

The XC3S50 and XC3S1000 are the two most recent additions to the product
family and are presently ramping for full production. XC3S50 ES parts are
available through Xilinx distributor, but may not be in their inventories
just yet depending on package style. The XC3S50 has four 18K block RAMs,
two Digital Clock Managers (DCMs), and is 3.3V compatible.

You will not receive the older XC3S50J unless you specifically order the 'J'
device. Xilinx stopped building the 'J' engineering samples quite awhile
ago.
---------------------------------
Steven K. Knapp
Applications Manager, Xilinx Inc.
General Products Division
Spartan-3/II/IIE FPGAs
http://www.xilinx.com/spartan3
Tel: (408) 626-7447
E-mail: steve.knapp@xilinx.com
---------------------------------
Spartan-3: Make it Your ASIC

 

[Steven K. Knapp]

[snip]

We're looking at the Spartan-3 3S50ES part.

I forgot to mention one other item.

If you want to create some initial designs for your XC3S50 application
without needing to build hardware, you might want to investigate the
Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board. It has an XC3S200 FPGA in the FT256 package,
plus a host of other interfaces, 1M of SRAM, a JTAG download cable, plus
software. The board is in stock and sells for $99 plus applicable tax and
shipping.

Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board
http://www.xilinx.com/s3boards
---------------------------------
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

 

[Gordon]

Hello Steven,

Thanks for the input.

Our Avnet distributors have been real good about providing data books
and eval boards so I'm well equipped in that sense.

My concerns are for moving things to production. To be totally honest
with you, this is the first I've heard of the status of the 3S50ES
part -- I was told that Avnet already has stock on them!

I'll be sure to confirm part numbers with them.

In the mean time -- I'll have to admit that the Spartan IIE appears to
be a better fit for the application (3.3 compatibility required,
possible 5v inputs, no need for two LDOs) as it's not logic or
computationally intensive. It's just too bad it costs more than the
3S50ES part!

Thanks again,

Gordon


"Steven K. Knapp" <steve.knappNO#SPAM@xilinx.com> wrote in message news:<cep28v$r2q1@cliff.xsj.xilinx.com>...

We're looking at the Spartan-3 3S50ES part.

I forgot to mention one other item.

If you want to create some initial designs for your XC3S50 application
without needing to build hardware, you might want to investigate the
Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board. It has an XC3S200 FPGA in the FT256 package,
plus a host of other interfaces, 1M of SRAM, a JTAG download cable, plus
software. The board is in stock and sells for $99 plus applicable tax and
shipping.

Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board
http://www.xilinx.com/s3boards
---------------------------------
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]

"Gordon" <elf_ster@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4a2e9945.0408032023.4422fe43@posting.google.com...

[snip]

My concerns are for moving things to production. To be totally honest
with you, this is the first I've heard of the status of the 3S50ES
part -- I was told that Avnet already has stock on them!

I'll be sure to confirm part numbers with them.

Avnet likely does have some XC3S50 ES devices in stock. If not, they can
easily obtain them for you.

In the mean time -- I'll have to admit that the Spartan IIE appears to
be a better fit for the application (3.3 compatibility required,
possible 5v inputs, no need for two LDOs) as it's not logic or
computationally intensive. It's just too bad it costs more than the
3S50ES part!

Just to be clear, Spartan-3 FPGAs support 3.3V I/O. Likewise, you can
interface a Spartan-3 I/O to a 5V input signal using a 300 ohm or greater
series current-limiting resistor. Essentially, you want to limit the
voltage at the pin to less than 4.05V and the current to roughly less than
10 mA. The goal is to keep the I/O diodes off.

The Spartan-3 can drive a 5V device assuming that the device has TTL-style
inputs and that the FPGA I/O uses a 3.3V supply.

You are correct that Spartan-3 provides lower cost per gate and lower cost
per I/O than comparable devices.
---------------------------------
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

 

[Adam Megacz]

"Steven K. Knapp" <steve.knappNO#SPAM@xilinx.com> writes:

If you want to create some initial designs for your XC3S50
application without needing to build hardware, you might want to
investigate the Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board.

By the way, I have one of these and it's great.

- a