I have an application that will probably use a XC3S200 part (probably only half filled). I need moderate DSP capability, so the hardware multipliers are nice, and I need about 50 Kbits block ram and about 2000 logic cells. Clock rates are in the 50-100 Mhz range.
We are considering alternatives that we can use at minimum to beat up the Xilinx salesman, or if the price is better, we will use that instead of the Spartan3 part.
The Cyclone-2 family looks really attractive in this regard, but the Arrow web site seems to not know that the EP2C5 or EP2C8 exist, although larger Cyclone-2 parts are listed. Can anyone shed light on if/when the smaller Cyclone-2 parts are available?
Also, I was a little surprised that the Lattice EPC6 parts seem to be stocked in distribution and seem to be competitively prices ($14 in
100s), so I will probably consider this part also. I assumed only brand X and A have low cost DSP friendly FPGAs. Are there any other parts I should be considering? I couldn't get much pricing online for the Actel proasic family - I think it doesn't have hardware multipliers, but I could build those out of FPGA fabric if there were enough logic cells.-Jeff