Spartan-3E starter kit

When you have to pay a bill by a certain day, or when you have to turn in a paper in school, it always means "before the end of the specified period". So "fourth quarter" means, before December 31. Peter Alfke

"Peter Alfke" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...

the Xilinx webshop now only says that the s3e kit is 'targetted' DEC 2005.

translated: Xilinx makes NO commitment about the actual availability at all.

to my surprise Avnet claimed that they have shipped about 400 s3e kits and that they expect the kit to become available ex stock again. At the time i asked (a few weeks ago) Avnet was not able to ship immediatly.

I REALLY REALLY wonder what is the reason why Avnet is already shipping S3e based boards, and Xilinx is 'targetting' DEC 2005 ???

Anybody cares to explain?

Antti

PS I have an immediate project that requires small low cost FPGA production volumes maybe 500/year. I was considering S3e - but I guess I may have to reconsider and use non Xilinx vendor Altera/Lattice as they can ship their low cost FPGAs. I am still looking at S3e,.but unless I will get some confirmation that low volumes will be available within few months, I have to use alternatives.

Well considering the Xilinx webshop doesn't even have any S3 devices in stock, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for S3e.

Let's straighten this out on Monday! Peter Alfke, Xilinx Applications

It is Monday :-)

Simon

.. When you have to pay a bill by a certain day, or when you have to turn .. in a paper in school, it always means "before the end of the specified .. period". So "Monday" means, before 23:59:59 on Monday.... :-)

I'm sorry. Somebody had to do it.

New Zealand is ahead of the rest of the world, as usual... Peter

So when will the Spartan 3e actually be available?????? I can't even get my hands on a few chips. This is somewhat upsetting because the same thing happening with the Spartan 3.

Even though I love the Xilinx stuff, it seems really damn hard to get the parts!

-Eli

Trying to smoothe the waves. Spartan3e does NOT use a new, unproven manufacturing technology. That means there should not be big surprises like they were with the previous generation. The sequence of availability will be : 500e, and 100e first, 1600e then, 250e and 1200 ater that.

I am looking for the evalboard later today. Peter

"Peter Alfke" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

haha - S3e 'GENERAL AVAILABILITY' was mid august 2005 according to Xilinx postings on c.a.f.

somehow I feel the people are not witnesssing this general availability ?

its few hours til NOV 2005. (or it already is in NZ).

but mid august is way past. be it NZ or US westcoast timezone.

as of today the s3e 'introduction' looks, well 'a little less disaster' then the s3 introduction.

Antti's 3e cents

I do not understand what joy people get out of bitching and moaning. I am not in Marketing, I just try to help with some factual information. If I can get it... Peter Alfke

I for one welcome whatever information you can provide Peter. I guess its just frustrating to be told that a product will be avaiable a few months from now and it actually turns out to be many months of more than a year. I am always try to 'look-ahead' for the next design. I just hate being teased with things that I cannot have!

For experience with previous employment, Marketing always advertised product that couldn't be delivered in the timeframe they stated. Sigh.... Too bad the engineers weren't in charge of everything.

Thanks for all the information (even if we bitch)!

-Eli

I just received 8 XC3S500-4PQ208CES's (engineering samples) from AvNet a week or so ago.

I'm wishing I would have used a Spartan 2E now because I can't seem to get a 8bit BLVDS working. It receives but it does not transmit. Same circuit works on VertexII and Spartan2E no problem...

"Peter Alfke" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Peter,

I just want to have an S3e to play with. thats it. simple as that.

I CAN NOT talk about s3e at work- believe me I tried. I will get a weird a look only. I did think that I can not eat my pride to make another attempt (to talki in favor of s3e) but, I did I did eat the pride and did try again to promote S3e - with the same weird look as result. People on the field do not trust to deal with S3e yet. Thats the situation as of today. Sorry.

I could ask some friend from some other company to place on order on my behalf, but - that I think is too much troublesome. I can not buy from Xilinx (Xilinx is not selling..) and I am not going to beg either. I do have other toys to play with.

I personally DO still think that S3e is the BEST low cost FPGA around - specially the MBT feature, etc. - but it is also likely that I will be looking into alternatives.

Peter, its the marketing - Xilinx is big, we all know that, but that is no excuse to bullshit big time. If S3e is available as of today, WHY is it not available from Xilinx online store? Altera has pretty much all the product line in their online shop. I dont have to tell you what is orderable in Xiíinx online store. The fact that s3e is orderable by disties with their usueal 6-8 week delivery (maybe), is not good enough.

You know, I am Xilinx user. But as of the S3e delay, I looked 2nd time at Altera Cyclone II, and BIG SURPRISE I found DCI like features there - with no external components. I dont have direct application for this, but I have this on my mind - Cyclone II, orderable now, low cost, supports standard SPI, has on chip termination.

If I would have been busy playing with S3e I may not have discovered this feature of Cyclone II. Sorry I have not made full comparison of C-II vs S3e, but chances are C-2 wins. ok, maybe not, the Xilinx SRL16 are really nice, specially when used the way Ken likes it. I hope the missing config readback function of S3 is now being fixed in S3e silicon. Cheapest C-2 available today in online shop is around 12 USD. If I can not buy S3e, I will be buying C-2 ? Could be.

For Peter Alfke - I was about to say that I am able to design and manufacture an S3e eval board in 1 WEEK - from design start GO til orders shipped (sure large NRE applies) -, but there is no silicon. hence no eval boards. Xilinx is "targetting" DEC 2005, heavens sake, if there is working silicon of s3e why delay the eval boards til December???? Any delay is lost business, lost money - GOGO, many people are eager to design in S3e, if they get real assurance on availabiliy. The people in the field are no longer buying the marketing bullshit. You can either by the stuff or not. Saying it is available means nothing. Take a look at S3 intro the actual availability was more than a year later from what Xilinx claimed it.

A lot of people are looking at 'Xilinx latest' - and they want to get hands dirty with S3e, so why delay? Only explanation I can think of is that there is no silicon working enough to the degree of being allowed to be used in evaluation boards.

Really - day before yesterday I spend some time thinking if I should make an s3e eval board - and I figured out that as I am not able to get authorative trustworthy answer on silicon availability it makes no sense to invest extra time at this moment - so I am doing something else instead. Steven Knapp as example hasnt cared to answer my emails. Just plain ignorance. Ok, agreed maybe I am too PITA and thats why he hasnt responded.

Antti,

Peter relax - I know you are not in the marketing, Maybe one day the marketing will understand that not everything goes. And I dont have much joy in moaning, I do have A LOT OF JOY playing with latest and greates technologies. I really do. And I do play with what I get hands on. Sometimes spending my (or even my families) food money on it. I do not have have any s3e yet, but I have spent some of my private money to obtain some programmable devices lately (not xilinx silicon) and considering buying some more stuff (again not xilinx silicon). hmm,.. actually my last buy was some Xilinx XC4000 on ebay :) - still having ideas to support old FPGAs that are abondoned by their creators.

sneak preview: on my harddisk I have a tool I call 'Logic Assembler' it can serve as front end for almost any FPGA/PLD for what the vendor fitter/mapper exists. Tested in silicon with Atmel FPSLIC and Xilinx V4, also works for Xilinx XC4K(bitgen OK no silicon test yet), and pretty much everything. I am looking into adding support for XC2K, XC3K as well but as I have lost my 5 Inch disks with XACT unfortunatly the XC2/3K support is under questionmark :( oh well maybe I can buy it (old XACT) one day on ebay, you never know.

Hi Antti, Care to post some code examples ? Output format(s) ?

-jg

That's their own XC3S100E board, not the Xilinx starter board with the XC3S500E.

main output format is vendor specific EDIF

input formats supported for now are logic assembler text mode or xilinx ISE schematics. also working on netlist imports from CAE tools.

below is test code that work on Atmel FPSLIC starterboard. the output is processed with Atmel Figaro.

---------------------- .vendor atmel .family at94k .library at94k

input I output O

input I1 output O1

ibuf I_IBUF obuf O_OBUF

ibuf I_IBUF1 obuf O_OBUF1

O = O_OBUF.PAD I_IBUF.PAD = I O_OBUF.A = I_IBUF.Q

O1 = O_OBUF1.PAD I_IBUF1.PAD = I1 O_OBUF1.A = I_IBUF1.Q

----------------------

really simple.

"Benjamin Todd" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:dk7jil$4n$ snipped-for-privacy@sunnews.cern.ch...

yes I know the avnet board,.I wanted to get it the day it was announced, but at work everybody refuses to talk about s3e. and dont think I can order as private person :( So the only way to get this board would be to pay some friend that orders for his company and then ships it to me.

Antti