edk annual renewal cost?

I am fairly new to the FPGA world. I've been using Actel parts (Axcelerator family) at work but I would like to migrate to the Xilinx family for the next generation design for an existing project. I would like to take advantage of the in-cricuit reprogrammablility and the high speed parts (either Virtex II or Virtex 4). I've downloaded the free WebPack from Xilinx and have purchased the Spartan 3 Starter kit. I've done a little checking into the costs of development tools for home use for embedded processors.

According to the Xilinx home page advertising the EDK, the package cost is about $495. This is for a one-year license. Does this mean I would have to pay $495 every year I wanted to use this package? Is this the only way to get support for embedded processors like Microblaze and PowerPC? Are there any alternatives (less expensive) for home use? I would like to develop code for FPGAs (fairly high speed devices... > 300MHz) at home then employ the designs at work (where a separate license with annual renewal) would be established.

Is the EDK to only way to get generation support for Macro models?

Is there a better route to development that anyone could suggest?

Thanks.

Dave

Yes, there is an annual fee, which at least if paid directly through Xilinx, is $495 (having just paid it a few days ago).

Not strictly. What EDK provides is two main things that I find useful. First is a fairly painless, complete environment for developing the hardware and software. More significant, EDK includes (included for the $495 paid for EDK) a bunch of cores for performing lots of common functions. For example, cores for all kinds of different memories, both internal memory and a wide variety of external memory types. That alone is well worth the price to me. Almost all these cores include VHDL source too.

Well, you might want to read the license carefully. While of course few will admit it here, I think it is fairly common for people to have copies of the software at home for this purpose, and frankly I think it is in the interest of Xilinx to ignore such uses. There is no hardware license enforcement (via flexlm or whatever) on EDK. Probably the bigger factor is whether your company allows such use; it is not worth getting fired over.

Since this apparently would benefit you at work, probably a good way to obtain EDK and also get familiar with it is to look into some of the "evaluation" boards offered by the various chip vendors and Xilinx. Several of these include EDK as part of the purchase price, and some also include more elaborate tool such as a complete Linux environment (not included with EDK). I consider that the learning hump on these tools is quite large, and having a complete working board and environment to start from was invaluable to me. Without that, it is clear to me after the fact that I would have spent substantially more time trying to figure out all the pieces.