now I can talk about it...

Must be an April fools joke, because obviously you wont be able to buy it for a year.

Jon,

Ha ha.

It is shipping, as ES. Right now.

The early access program is now over, and we have already been shipping ES parts, for quite awhile.

Austin

Minor Correction,

The 'early access' program isn't "over", but it is winding down! One could say it is over for the two released parts, and ongoing for the others to be released as stated.

We decided that it was in everyone's interest to release everything: silicon, software, IP, reference designs, demo pcbs, characterization reports, ... all at once (what a concept). So, we just did.

Quite honestly, I am frankly amazed at what has been accomplished, and how smoothly it has been. If I compare this to the other 8 major releases I have taken part in over the last ten years, this is in every category, the most complete, and highest quality.

Does that mean we can stop working? Are we done? Of course not: the goal is to do it even better with each and every release, so we do note down every complaint, and every "whoops" so that attention is focused for the future releases.

Yes, I do write down every complaint of our friend, Antti and everyone else, too.

Austin

Jon, as the press release says: "Virtex-5 FXT FPGA samples are now shipping for the FX30T and FX70T devices. " So, when do you need one of those, or how many? Put your order in with your favorite distributor, and let's compare notes. This is NOT April fools' day, this is serious business. I hope you are serious, too. We love to have you as a customer. Peter Alfke, Xilinx

You know what they say: once bitten, twice shy.

When the main distributors have parts actually in stock, I might take a look.

Cheers, Jon

I am salivating over the SX240T. Any idea of when it will be available and for how much?

Jon, good news: Order entry is open as of today Lead time is 5 weeks. That means, with luck you can have parts in your hand this April, but definitely in May. Challenge us! Peter Alfke

Jon,

Nope, but this is:

Austin

What means ES? At your online store:

I don't see it. How much will it cost?

I'm working for a company, who plans a new product and we are evaluating new chips. Do you know the new AT91SAM9263?

This chip costs about $19 for 100 units (

) and I have quotes of $13 for 1000 units. But our product needs some FPGA and DSP power, too. A single chip solution like the Virtex-5 FXT, sounds like an interesting idea, but how much does the IP cost for USB, ethernet, LCD controller, 2D graphics accelerator etc., which I get for free with the Atmel chip, a free Linux distribution included?

The Atmel chip, with some small integrated FPGA capabilities, like Spartan, would be the ideal solution for our product. Currently we are planning to use an additional small FPGA and some inexpensive DSPs from Freescale.

--
Frank Buss, fb@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de

"Xilinx is actively engaged in the open source Linux community."

We are looking forward for the system friendly libusb jtag drivers.

Ding ding.

HTH, Syms.

Custom, high volume silicon will always be cheaper than FPGA - so you should do as much with std blocks as possible, and use the smallest FPGA that will sweep-up the rest.

NXP also have some new ARM 9 releases ?

"Pricing: Ranges from $6.95 to $8.25 in 10K volumes. Availability: Sampling in April with volume shipping in the third quarter of 2008."

You have seen the AT91CAP9 and AT91CAP7 series ? These have NRE, but DO combine Low power CPU and a FPGA. The prototype flow I think uses Altera.

-jg

Jon,

Read the news articles:

"over 1,000 devices shipped to over 100 customers."

I didn't know if this was a secret, but since it has been published in two separate magazines, I will quote them, quoting us.

Austin

This isn't a matter of Pavlov. I actually do have applications where an SX240T would be far more appropriate than any previously available chip.