Gowin Semiconductor, Real or Fake?

Now I think I am remembering the AG6K and AG10K from AGM, who's parts are a lso mostly discontinued.

Here is an interesting MCU/FPGA from their web site.

I believe when I dug around I found AGM was connected to another company in an unclear manner, maybe it was Gowin, can't remember. It may have been A nlogic, or maybe that's the 'A' in AGM... lol

Here is an excerpt from a two year old press release...

"AGM has independent intellectual property rights in software and circuits. In terms of products, it is currently compatible with mainstream manufactu rers and the software and hardware ecology is unchanged. The internal inter face of the chip is compatible with mainstream manufacturers, and the PCB b oard level can be directly replaced and compiled with AGM software. Import programming. AGM currently supplies devices that can be directly replaced: ? CPLD series for ALTERA MAX II series, including EPM240T100, EPM57

This seems to be saying they are legally supplying copies of other company' s chips including Lattice, Altera (Intel) and Xilinx. I also found a news article with an interesting leadin.

I didn't know any of this was banned or restricted.

I managed to install Gowin EDA on Linux ( Gentoo) - both versions - Windoiws ( it seems to start under Wine) and Linux version.

Haven't tried to work with Win version yet.

I've got Linux version to start, but it Synplify Pro part stubbornly refuses to recognise license file...

BTW, they've just announced first FPGA with a friggin Bluetooth stack...

iws ( it seems to start under Wine) and Linux version.

ses to recognise license file...

And an ARC processor. Seems it has been around a while and is not a red he aded step child, but has been used quite a bit. I've just never heard of i t.

They seem to provide packages that are useful and not BGAs, so that's a big plus for me. But if I can't get data sheets and can't get parts, it's a n o-go for sure.

When simple things get complex my frustration drives all knowledge out of m y mind. Right now I just rediscovered that the GW1N is a family, not a par t size and they have up to 9000 LUT4s in an 88 pin, QFN package. Edge sell s the 4608LUT4 QFN88 (GW1NR-LV4QN88C5) for under $4.

I think I cracked the code. I was at this page and tried to download the tools. That took me to a signup page and that seemed to work. It is not real clear that it worked, but it seems to have. :)

Yeah, forgot to warn you.

You have to register adn login first.

Also, even after that downloads happen to fail.

It helps to start them by clicking the same link some time after that ( about a minute later).

I still haven't cracked the Synario licence.

I think I've stumbled over some document describing manual tweaking of the licence needed, but can't find it now...