Anyone with Xilinx SP305-board ?

Seemed like a good deal, but the board was only around for purchase a few months, so I guess there aren't to many around ? Thats a shame, really ! It is as far as I can tell a good board, It has a good an powerfull FPGA; Spartan 3-1500 and enough power to fullfill the requirements of my masters degree. But the board are no longer available ? I was kind'a hoping draining knowledge from other users of this board...

Reply to
John Smith
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Have you tried searching on the Xilinx website. I was able to find:

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Between the two, there are reference designs (with working UCF files), schematics, and a user guide.

-Seth

Reply to
radarman

John

What are your requirements for a board? We can match the XC3S1500 on a number of our products just a question of what else you want on board. Have a look at our University Access program for discounts etc. Click the big green square on top right of our root page for details or directly at

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John Adair Enterpoint Ltd.

John Smith wrote:

Reply to
John Adair

few

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Thanks for the tips, I will check it out. It seems kind'a strange to me though that Xilinx is discontinuing this board after a few months on the market ? Why is that ?

Reply to
John Smith

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Well, I've checked it out now, and I have downloaded all this stuff before, so nothing new. In fact, I had to make my own "master" UCF-file for this board. Maybe there are some hidden treasures in the EDK files, but I'm only using ISE.

And Xilinx does not offer any customer support either.

Not a good way to treat future customers.

Reply to
John Smith

John,

It is listed as out of stock.

How does that equate to discontinued?

I think I missed something.

Austin

Reply to
Austin Lesea

Commercial advertising are still banned on news, right ?

few

! It

masters

Reply to
John Smith

The board is listed as "no longer available".

So you missed something, yes ! A fundamental knowledge of the english language....

Reply to
John Smith

What about the ML401. It's about the same price. You get a Virtex 4 instead of the Spartan 3. The peripherals look about the same. The LX25 is a little smaller than the S3-1500, but not tons smaller and it's still supported by webpack.

-Arlen

John Smith wrote:

Reply to
gallen

Well, Austin deare, I did not meen to be rude, but when I buy hardware for about $400, it would be very nice to have an e-mail address to post simple questions, an get some answers to. Thats not to much to ask for.

It's kind'a like the ultimatium the US ambassador in Norway has given us: Either you are with us, or you are against us ! (He IS a fool !)

I would not put it quite like that, I would say; I you dont offer propper support, you will loose me as a customer. Maybe you'll regret that some time. Remenber the first days of The Beatles ?

I'll always manage. I'll just switch to one of Xilinxs competitors.

Reply to
John Smith

Ok, but my point is that

1: Xilinx does not offer any customer support. 2: Xilinx does not offer any customer support. 3: Xilinx does not offer any customer support.

I'ts impossiblle to get hold of the guys ! Even simple guestion ! NO saupport e-mail. NO support phone ? What am I supposed to do ? Write a letter to Georg Dobbeltv Busk ?

Maybe thats a good idea ! That way I can tell him what a crappy ambassador he has sent us ! I want the old one back. He understood the close relatisonship between our to nations. The new one, with his speaches about chosing sides, will only feed the left wing and communists. USA should never need to question our loyalti, but when the US ambassador does that in a public speech, I feel hurt, and I know most Norwegians does. Thats why I call him a fool.

Reply to
John Smith

Vi her i Norge vil kanskje ikke tro det, men for å få lov til å poste dette måte jeg fjerne den amerikanske presidentens navn fra teksten....ikke sensur på news ???

Lev i drømmeland, dustenerder !

Reply to
John Smith

I would suggest that you try

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Right at the top you will see a tab labeled "Contact Support" where you can follow the links to file a WebCase on your issue or to get the phone number for technical support as well.

In additional to our official support channels we also monitored this newsgroup for issues. To claim that Xilinx does not offer any customer support is a bit of hyperbole.

Ed McGettigan

-- Xilinx Inc.

Reply to
Ed McGettigan

No, it's not. I have tried to register with Xilinx support, but I got a reply that stated that since I was not an employe , but only a student, I could not get direct support.

May be there is some part of "You can not join" that I did not understand ?

Reply to
John Smith

Well, Mr. Mcgettigan, I hope you will come up with an e-mail to someone who can give me som answers about HARDWARE issues on the SP305-board itself . Thats all I ask for.

It's 4:00 saturday morning here now, so I'm turning in. I have a nice day ahead of me, no clouds and

80 F +. I have no boat, I'm sorry to say, but I migt take a trip out to one one the local islands here i Oslofjorden, and just relax.

Have a nice weekend !

PS. Give me best regards to Austin as well. DS.

Reply to
John Smith

John,

Students are being supported through the webcase email system, as our agreement with a university for support of students expired, and no one wanted to continue to provide student support.

Seems that universities are equally challenged to do things for free.

Since we do recognize and appreciate students using Xilinx parts, we chose to provide support through email webcase.

No phones for students (what I was told, but maybe that changed. I'll get corrected if I'm wrong). Sorry. Phone calls cost money. Emails are much more efficient.

Austin

John Smith wrote:

Reply to
Austin Lesea

Spending Real money for a product makes you a customer (not a student).

As such, open a webcase.

It really isn't that hard, is it?

We only get tens of thousands of cases opened each month.

Aust>

Reply to
Austin Lesea

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What exactly are you trying to learn beyond what can be gleaned from the datasheets and schematics? If you have the schematics, then you can create the UCF. You also have the part numbers for all the board devices, so you can download the datasheets if they aren't included.

different story, but I haven't messed with that yet)

I wrote my own UCF for the Spartan 3E "sample pack" board, which admittedly isn't as complex as the board you have, but it's not difficult. This was my first experience with Xilinx devices, so I had a few problems with the UCF format (specifically, forgetting to put 'p' in front of the pin numbers) but I was able to get a working top-level VHDL and UCF files pretty quick.

Besides, I find going through the schematics to be helpful anyway. It gets you familiar with the parts on the board, how they are connected, and any limitations or gotcha's. For example, I discovered that 2 of the 8 signal lines for MA1-DATA bus on the Spartan 3E sample pack boards are INPUT ONLY! (Who knows what the designers were thinking when there are exactly two unused GPIO lines left unused on the board...) I also discovered that the upper 8 bits of the 16-bit FLASH data bus are input-only as well.

Now that I know that, I can make better decisions about I/O mapping.

Reply to
radarman

Xilinx can't be that stupid, so I am still looking for a support e.mail adress for students.

Reply to
John Smith

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before,

this

only

I totally agree with you ! I have gone throug all of that, but there is an error in the schematics. And there is now way I can get support on this issue, no email support, noe phone support.. I am totally pissed off by Xilinx, if they dont straighten up i'll cut them lose and left them drift away..forever.

Reply to
John Smith

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