Unknown price difference for xilinx fpga

Sep 19, 2005 2 Replies

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Hahnsolo 20 years ago

I have been learning about fpga's for a month now, and stumbled across the merec web site.

I am looking for a dev board with 20000-30000 LC's and two jumped out at me. The DS-KIT-4VLX25LC and DS-KIT-3SMB1500 both are in that range. One is a virtex 4 the other a spartan 3. I cannot figure out why the spartan board is twice the price of the virtex 4 board. The spartan has only 5k more lc's while the V4 has more Dsp/multiplier units and

twice the block ram. The boards seem comparable to each other in addon

features... I could see some difference due to the 5k LC's, but twice?

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What am I missing?

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pipjockey 20 years ago

One board is listed at $295, the other at $595. It doesn't take many additional parts and features to take a bite out of $300.

The Spartan 3 is in an FG676 package, the V4 in the F363 package. In general, the more IO's, the more $$. The 3S has two expansion slots and on-board flash, and a speaker in addition to the DDR mem, switches and LCD that they have in common.

Board pricing from distributors is not totally dependent on the true silicon cost. They receive compensation from supplier marketing groups to promote new parts and features. It is not only the FPGAs that are being promoted but also the other components as well.

Pip

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Hahnsolo 20 years ago

In order to program the V4 I would have to use the jtag cable? Also what is "serial data flash"? an add on?

Thanks

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