Virtex and Spartan

Hello can anyone say me what is the difference between virtex and spartan fgpa chips. It is just the number of gates in them, voltage levels or anything more than that. I have used spartan chips.i configured the chip with different vhdl files again and again on the same chip.But somebody said it is not possible in the xcv1000 virtex chips.(dynamically reconfigurable).Is it true.Then,y are they called FPGA's.

Thanks in advance bhadri

Reply to
Bhadri
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Bhadri,

did you have a short look at the data sheet of both series? They should answer your question.

As for your last question, I would say you have been told something wrong from somebody.

Regards, Mario

Reply to
Mario Trams

Bhadri, somebody gave you bad information. Virtex and Spartan are very similar, sometimes even almost identical. Virtex emphasizes size and performance, Spartan is the more frugal (hence the name) brother. SpartanXL is almost identical with XC4000XL, Spartan-II is almost identical with Virtex Spartan-IIE is almost identical with Virtex-E Spartan3 has many of the features of Virtex-II, but has reduced the chip size and therefore eliminated some features, and it has a newer version of the DCM.

Then there is technological evoluti>

Reply to
Peter Alfke

little difference other than speed and package choices

Virtually no difference. Some spartanII and VIrtex bit streams are interchangeable. The biggest difference I recall was the elimination of the temp sense diode in spartanII

Differences are greater. The most remarkable one is that the SpartanIIe has considerably less memory than the equivalent sized virtexE. The DLLs are also different IIRC, still macros for one could be used in the other without change

Further divergence. Half of the SRL16s / LUT RAM is gone, making it tricky to reuse placed macros for VirtexII in spartan 3.

History shows that the spartan line is diverging from the virtex line. Let's hope the divergence does not continue to the point where design libraries are no longer common between them. It is already getting to be a pain to work a design library to support both spartan3 and VIrtexII.

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--Ray Andraka, P.E. President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.

401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950 email snipped-for-privacy@andraka.com
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Reply to
Ray Andraka

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