Is the coolrunner XPLA3 getting axed? I noticed that it is no longer a link on the xilinx font page. The online store does not list them on the front page(only Cool runner II and the XC9500 Series). Its also slim pickens' when you do find the part you need on Avnet or Nuhorizons. Digikey is horrible for Xilinx Now.
When I see this with other IC/MCU vendors I get scared. I really like these chips. The Cool Runner II series is great but I really dont like having the 1.8v Core Requirement (at least with lower speed logic).
I work at a University Research Lab where we typical build 10 or 20 of a design before passing it off to a sponsor. It seems that lately I have to *really* pick through to see what is avaialble online before I do a design as the chips always seem to be out of stock.
Are all the other brands (Brand A, Brand L) like this as well? Or should I just stop complaining. I do love the technology but it seems that I spend more time finding parts than writing HDL.
So it may be a good idea to "waste" a few cents and minutes to add a linear regulator for 1.8V instead of wasting hours to get not easy availabe parts. This hold especially true for a handfull of boards. For hundreds or thousands, this is another story.
I guess my frustration goes beyond the Cool Runnerm. Take the Spartan
3e. Its been advertised on the website as the greast thing since sliced bread for *over* a year now. I am sure its a nice chip. I have been wanting to use it. Click on the online store and select say the XC3S100E. Its says special Qty. Lead Time Call...... Its obvious that there is a diconnect between Marketing and Engineering/Development. I dont mind delays, etc. Just be up front about.
The thing is, how do you know which will be easily available tomorrow. They discontinued the old coolrunner from Philips for purely political reasons, how do you know what will suit them tomorrow. As long as one firm - no matter which - has monopoly over a technology things don't look good for us users... (there is no competitive technology to the coolrunner on the market, in case you did not know that) . But then again, as long as there are reasonable people like Peter and Austin at Xilinx - although I suspect they are a minority - there is always hope one can eventually get a job done.
What can a Spartan 3E do what a Spartan 3 can't? Not much I guess. So instead of wasting times with marketing battle, go for another (available) IC. Don't forget. We are engineers. We make valuable things out of AVAILABLE things. (At least, thats the myth ;-)
looks like Xilinx is taking an exit from PLD(and non-volatile) - market.
If there would be something new coming out we should have seen some publicity on this by today. ( like mistake with the wrong posting about Virtex-5 )
Sure Both Altera and Lattice have their "new-PLD" families (MAX2/machXO) out so Xilinx has the advantage todo the same even better
- machXO is better than MAX2 and CoolFPGA from xilinx could beat both of them.
I would pretty much welcome Xilinx to have 'CoolFPGA' same as machXO, but with 1 BRAM in smallest device and maybe more low power options.
Hm, lets see maybe there is something coming, sure one may wish Xilinx to really get S3e and V4 production running first, guess it has higher priority, possible to that extent that it doesnt any more make sense for Xilinx even to attempt to compete with MAX2/machXO/XP
Welcome to the real world. Besides, I don't think its thaaat bad. The old coolrunners are still in production, "just" a quick acquisition for new designs is not possible anymore. So what.
In general yes, but I would'nt overstate the problem. AFAIK Xilinx isn't ripping off its customers (even if some, eahhh newsgroupers, blame them for that.)
What about the MACH line from Lattice? The have also a zero power family (Z?). And in the case the is truely no competitive technology, we have to be glad to have the Xilinx parts at this low prices (uhhh, I could work in marketing, right? ;-)
You can almost allways get the job done, if you don't glue yourself to ideal assumptions in a non-ideal world. If one IC is not available, try to use another. If this take longer, more troublesome whatever, tell your boss you are not McGyver. And as someone else already stated, this lesson (about marketing blabla and utopia release dates) is well know nowadays. If you didn't attend this lesson before, you did now ;-)
Oh, thanks for welcoming me. I was just wondering what this place was.
How many of your designed products have lived long enough to see a discontinued component.
So far I have been able to avoid the "almost". Doing a job means doing it within a time- and cost frame. When you have a reasonable number of working designs in your library, you will find out that unnecessary change of components only extends the frame.
Not so much, since Iam a bit too young to tell stories from the good ole days ;-) But I have seen it. About 4 years ago, I did a minor redesign because of discontinued parts. A half year ago, I did a major redesign on the same unit (all functions that were done using ASICs and FPGAs are now inside one little FPGA from brand A)
Right. But this was not the point. The point was that the OP was complaining about delayed availibility of components that were announced ages ago (ok, lots of month ;-) So NO EXISTING design uses ANNOUNCED devices.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO truth to this rumor. XPLA3 aka CoolRunner is alive and kicking and finds increasing acceptance in the market. Disappearance from our website and poor availability data from Avnet or DigiKey have nothing to do with the health of the product line and its long-time future. Rumors like this can become self-fulfilling, that's why I jumped in immediately. Will publish additional convincing data soon. Peter Alfke, Xilinx
The lifetimes of the CPLD products are incredibly long.
If you notice we have 5V, 3.3V, and 2.5V CPLD products still advertisd and supported on our website.
We also have the older Coolrunner (XPLA3), and newer Coolrunner II.
All of them are there, and are being produced and supplied.
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Just because the latest darling is the latest product does not mean that there are not a ton of sockets out there that still need filling.
It took us awhile to really understand the CPLD market (and how it is so different from the FPGA market), but now that we think we know what that market is looking for (basically: #1-price, #2-price, #2-price, #4-power...) Xilinx is the second largest CPLD supplier in the market, and growing. It is an important part of our business, and we have a division that is tasked with making a profit, and growing the market.
The FPGA business is also important (obviously), and there we split into two groups: Virtex line, and Spartan line, each group with its own charter.
As we move from 90nm to 65nm, and beyond, one can expect more diversity in the offerings for FPGAs, as the Spartan line has begun to attract new customers from new markets that the Virtex line has never been able to interest.
It is all a very complex business. And obsoleting a line is only done when it is no longer making money (volumes have dwindled to such a small number that we are at end of life for the line). A last time buy notice is issued, follwed by a last time ship notice.
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Just search on 'last time buy CPLD' for the entire website and you will see the notices, and the dates. For CPLDs, it is extremely rare to end the line. Most notices are for transitions to less expensive fab partners so that we can continue to match prices in this vicious market (CPLDs).
It may be that for the older devices, there are no new sockets that we are winning, and the volumes and contract are primarily being handled on a routine basis, so the shelf stock for small quantities is being discontinued by distribution. That is only fair. If they get no new requests for the part, they are unlikely to pay much attention to supporting small quantities. Peter and I both agree that a 'source for the small guys' is critical*, and he and I are still fighting that battle.
Austin
*we also know the small guy might be doing the job for a big guy, or might even be the big guy, too.
I would say that a product that has poor availability, and suffers Disappearance, (as you admit) is not going to get new designs. Once a product is tagged NFND, then it fades from everyones radar quite quickly. ( not just designers, but FAE's and stockists.. )
Key Q: Do Xilinx not WANT new designs in this family ?
Jim, the website mention what is new, and it does not seem to be edited with the intention of continuously expressing the health of each individual product line. It's kind of "no news is good news". The non-availability for instant purchasing is a sore point, and has definitely gotten my attention, and I have raised what can only be described as a big stink about this. We are a large coumpany, and we seem to take forever to remedy this f@#$%@# situation. So, it affects instant purchases only, but should not affect your confidence in the product line. We are now in lots of consumer applications that we never even dreamed of for a programmable device (low priced and with very low power consumption). The product line is healthy, it just seems to have trouble creating attention on our website, and it has difficulties getting on the shelves of the retailers. Darn-it! Peter Alfke, Xilinx
Perhaps Xilinx could learn from ST, TI et al, who tag their devices 'Preview' 'Active', and 'Mature' (etc) ? That makes it clear what is bleeding edge, and what is trailing edge.
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