Just curious, does Virtex4 has its own built-in configuration ROM? as in it will automaticaly has the chip configured on power up?
- posted
17 years ago
Just curious, does Virtex4 has its own built-in configuration ROM? as in it will automaticaly has the chip configured on power up?
sutejok schrieb:
ALL Xilinx FPGA are RAM based and require ext ROM for config
Antti
Hi Austin,
Do you mean that next gen Virtex will come with a build in flash (no ROM please), or is it rather Spartan4 flash?
Luc
Adding FLASH loader memory to the same package (not 1 die) is relatively easy to do, as also is adding large SRAM. Other industries already do this.
Making a whole device on a flash process is more difficult, but others are doing that too. So yes, I am sure it will come from Xilinx. The question is when ?
-jg
Jim,
First, Virtex customers often do not use eeprom, or flash (one per chip), but load all FPGAs from some other 'source of all knowledge'. Virtex would not be looking at a FPGA+Flash until there was sufficient business for such a model.
Second, Spartan customers are the perfect target for such a product. So if it happens, expect it to happen there.
Yes, the question is when.
And, the question is also, how?
As everyone knows, flash lags the leading process edge by a year (or more), and flash and the highest speed bulk cmos process don't live well together. The result is that the best leading edge flash, and the best leading edge FPGA is always a cheaper, and more capable solution.
As I said, I am not in marketing, and I can not talk about what the next products are, nor what features they have.
However, once the technology issue is solved, then having a FPGA with FLASH memory is definitely something that will happen. Again, the key is to have the latest FPGA, and the latest flash, without the penalty of having to fabricate them both in the same process.
So, stay tuned.
Austin
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