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Spartan-3A XC3S1400A development board?

Greetings,

Would anyone happen to know where if could purchase an FPGA development board with the Xilinx Spartan-3A XC3S1400A FPGA on it (or a socketed board capable of accepting an XC3S1400A) please? I need the 32 multipliers on the 1400A, but the starter board Xilinx sells through Avnet only comes with the XC3S700A FPGA which only has 16 usable multipliers (yes, I know there are actually 20, but since I'm doing extended precision binary multiplication I can only use 16 of them. Why on earth Xilinix incorporated a number of multipliers that isn't a power of two is beyond me!). Incidentally, the FPGA doesn't necessarily have to be a Spartan or even a Xilinx part as long as it has fast hardware multipliers.

My I/O needs are minimal. All I really need are 8 switches and 8 Leds (although a hexadecimal display would be great). Basically all I need is something to display a binary factor of the RSA-704 and RSA-768 challenge numbers. ;-)

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Ron

Reply to
Ron
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You could get a MicroBlaze development kit from Xilinx authorized distributors for $595. The Spartan-3E has 36 multipliers (which presents, it appears, 32 for your needs) and isn't geared toward I/O optimized needs like the Spartan-3A but logic optimized (or at least that's their marketing pitch).

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Maybe you can use the MicroBlaze, maybe you can't. It's a shame the board isn't offered separately.

- John_H

Reply to
John_H

Thanks for the tip John_H. I've bookmarked that board and will purchase it unless I can find something cheaper or faster with H/W multipliers in the next few days. I just hope the board doesn't *require* me to use all it's fancy MicroBlaze features which would be overkill for what I need.

While browsing the page you provided a link to, I also found comparisons of the Spartan-3 XC3S4000, XC3S5000, the Spartan-3L XC3S4000L, and the "Spartan-3 EasyPath" XCE3S4000 and XCE3S5000. They all have me drooling. The 4000 series has 96 multipliers and the 5000 series has 104 multipliers!!! (Although in my case, there are only 64 usable multipliers in either one).

Regards,

Ron

Reply to
Ron

Make sure you don't depend on the ISE WebPACK tool chain. It doesn't support the larger Spartans.

FYI, Altera's $150 Cyclone III starter kit has a EP3C25 with 66 multipliers and it is supported by the gratis Quartus II web edition.

Tommy - not affiliated with either.

Reply to
Tommy Thorn

Ron

Away from S3A but still S3 is our Raggedstone1 board. RS1-1500 with 32 multipliers. There is a 4 digit 7 seg display and 4 leds and if that is not enough add-on modules can give you more display options. Some details here

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Price is =C2=A3140/=E2=82=AC210/US$280(=C2=A390/=E2=82=AC135/US$180 student= )=2E If you want bigger our Broaddown2 board is now available with a XC3S2000 on board giving

40 multipliers and can a Virtex-4 added on for even more capability.

John Adair Enterpo> Greetings,

Reply to
John Adair

Wow, thanks for the tip Tommy! I just put an Altera Cyclone III Starter kit on order (it's on backorder for about a month). It's so much easier when I can order right on the manufacturer's website instead of having to go find a local vendor. I'm very glad I inquired about this here, and am very grateful for your answer.

Best wishes,

Ron

Reply to
Ron

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