First MicroBlaze demo design for Spartan-3A Starterkit

Well done.

Heh, at least you are (rightly) one of the inner circle who has the board!

Consider the situation for those in the cold outside who might happen to want one.

Despite it being a "Featured Board" on

you can't get it from the online store.

The distributor links on its page

offer three alternatives (two of them, supposedly to US distributors, are out of date re-directs) the third is to the "local distributors".

In my country there are apparently 3 distributors; - one doesn't list the board on their website (at least, not under "evaluation kits and boards; Xilinx", so where else should I look?) - the second's website "cannot be found" (and the contact email address is either in a different domain or a typo) - the third apparently doesn't have a website! Ahh, British customer service at its best...

back to those US distributors.

One says the board is out of stock, and please call because we won't sell it online anyway.

The other, fortunately, claims to have it in stock, and accepts my order, asking only a mere $75 for shipping, on what, a 1kg product? We'll see how long it takes...

Hey Xilinx, I'd suggest there's a little room for improvement here.

- Brian

on

can't get it from the

page

best...

Oh gosh - you know I asked my firend in the US to order the S3A board IMMEDIATLY when it was announced to be available. To our suprise it arrived from Avnet US very quickly (my last order from Avnet US Virtex-4 kit was delayes more then 6 months).

Recenlty at X-Fest there was again special offer for 199USD (X-Fest in Munich, price in Dolloren?), and as my devkit was at that time still in transit from the US (and stuck in Frankfurt customs for no reason for 3,5 weeks), I was almost to order another board in the hope it would arrive from german disti immediatly. Well I waited another day and got my board from customs after paying 19% VAT and some other mysterious amount of tax. I wonder how long the order from Avnet germany would have taken.

Well - while being happy having the board, I am also unhappy as for the most urgent task at the moment I cant use it, as there is no reference design.

Usually ALL Xilinx Boards with ethernet cababiliy do come with Xilinx webserver demo as primary board demo with networking, so I of course assumed the Spartan-3A board would also have it.

But, NO. Well, there is 10/100 ethernet design included. And a very clever one!

It uses PicoBlaze that communicates oved MII management interface and tests the PHY using RJ45 loop back cable.

So the 10/100 interface is working and tested and Xilinx can say that there is a networking demo!

This remainds me the ML300 board (5000 USD value). That board had Serial ATA host and device connectors (the reason to obtain it!) - when I asked about it then Xilinx response was: Yes, it works! We have a test design that loops back the SATA connectors and tests it! Of course only later Xilinx admitted that SATA is not working on Virtex-4 as the physical layer is not fully SATA compliant.

Hope it will not be the same case with DDR2 on Spartan-3A starterkit board.

Antti

If you sign up for X-Fest in Manchester, you might be offered a seminar discount for development boards such as the Spartan-3A. Heck, the X-Fest I attended even gave one away. There are a couple X-Fests in the UK, Manchester is just the first of the two at the end of May.

ausblenden -

I think for all X-Fest attendees there is 199USD discount offer for Spartan-3A kit that is valid for orders placed within 90 days (and also several other special prices for other boards and-or bundles)

Antti

I wonder if you actually have to attend the X-Fest, or would signing up qualify? Manchester would be about a 22 hour round trip, or about 10 hours if I fly.

An expensive way to save $26 + import duty + shipping!

- Brian

you only save 26, duty and shipping you have to pay anyway. but thats not the only special, so its possible to save more (if you spend more)

Antti

...

... rant snipped

Well it actually arrived! So now to try it out...

- Brian