Hi
as of Xfest2005 special Memec is offering S3 based development boards at special price $295 to our best knowledge S3E are not yet available, so how come its possible to get S3E based board at the Xtest? the first xfest is scheduled 26 April, does memec really have S3e based boards ready to ship by then or is business as usual, shipment 4 to 6 months after order? I am really confused, all our inquires have gotten the same result, NO S3E available until end of the year. And now S3E boards announced? I guess Memec will just take orders and ship whenever they get the chips. What means that there is no reason to order from Memec as better boards may be announced before Memec is actually shipping any S3E based board.
Similar story was with V4, I ordered the very first announced 'orderable' V4 kit (from Avnet) but before that kit was shipped a lot of more better value V4 kits did become available. So I would wait with S3E order from Memec, specially the price wonders me, the S3E kit special is $295, while normal price is $885 !!!! 900 box for the eval board for the lowest cost FPGA ever?? Good way to go Memec!!
Ok the price I figured out, memec is not selling the board, but is selling the board and ISE-baseX so at xfest they drop baseX price, that is the board is not actually at special price at all, you just get ISE baseX as bonus.
haha, I checked Memec prices S3E kit alone 99 USD S3E kit + ise BaseX 695 USD
orders can be placed now! but... beware in the memec reference design centre there are no docs on the S3E boards yet, and I am guessing memec can not ship immediatly any S3E boards, but at $99 price it makes sense to place order of course! and yes on the Product brief of the S3E board the marking on the S3E chip is not readable at all, even though I think it might be readable at the given JPEG resolution, so either the chip is 'blurred' or the JPEG compression ratio was choosen so that the marking is not readable.
poor guys who order the board of $99 value Xfest special for $295 !! (I mean those who do not need BaseX otherwise the deal would be ok)
Antti PS