Xilinx or Altera

Xilinx has a new approach to supplying software with demo boards. Read the fine print with your board, but generally what you get is a license to use the full EDK (Microblaze development software), which is otherwise quite expensive. This license is good for one computer (node-locked) *and* also locked to the particular Xilinx device on your demo board.

There's nothing to stop you from using it on your own hardware, provided you choose the same chip. Any other cores provided are also licensed for use on that particular chip. I'm not familiar enough with Spartan

6 to know if you would normally pay for the PCIe license, but on the Virtex 5 parts that have a built-in PCIe endpoint block the "wrapper" core is free. Ditto for the ethernet MAC block wrappers. The Ethernet TriMode soft MAC is not free.

For very simple MicroBlaze-based designs there is a "simple MicroBlaze" pre-built core available at no charge, with very limited connectivity. You can use this wih the SDK without the need for the EDK. However as soon as you want to build a processor with external memory and/or network connectivity you need to pony up for the EDK.

As far as I know, all of the Xilinx licenses are not time limited for use, but do have a time limit for maintenance (includes upgrades to the latest version - not always a blessing). The renewal fee for maintenance is almost the same as a new license. You also get webcase support while under maintenance. After that you're back to trolling forums with the students.

-- Gabor

I have not check this up now but IIRC, Xilinx license is for new designs for one year but after one year you need to purchase a new license for new designs but you can maintain old designs for a unlimited time.

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Spartan-6 devices also include an integrated PCIe block so there is no extra license cost.

Ed McGettigan

-- Xilinx Inc.

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Thanks Ed, (and everyone else). Looks like I'll be getting one of the embedded kits then. Everyone wins, because as soon as I actually pay for it, the Zynq or -7 series will immediately be available... That's just the way it goes :)

Cheers Simon

Simon,

I have been through a similar exercise recently -

Avnet has the EK-S6-SP605-G listed as in stock at $495....rather than $695...

However, I ended up purchasing an EBV DB4CGX15 Altera Cyclone IV pcie development board, online from

, for 133 euros (around $190) - this provides similar functionality with a similar deal to the SP605. Maybe worth a look...although a lot depends on the detail of what you want to do with the card..

Regards, Tom C.

Did they fix the RAM address bug? Afaik 256mb memory was actually smaller -

32mb, because they did not connect last address pins.

Yep, but thats the 'Evaluation kit' not the 'Embedded evaluation kit'. You get the EDK for $200 if you go for the embedded version.

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I saw it, and it's tempting for the price, but there weren't enough I/ O pins for what I need :( I did consider using a CPLD as a port- expander-type-of-thing, but in the end I think the 605 will be a lot easier...

Cheers

Simon

The RAM size is still 32Mb. Devboards committed most of the FPGA outputs to a user accessible header (and didn't have the nous to make two additional bits jumper selectable, so they could be used either for RAM address or for header pin use. That's not a major problem in my immediate application, as I am using the board simply as a pcie I/O test bed, part of a larger design, and am relaying the circuit, together with other devices, as part of a larger PCB, now that I am happy with the pcie sustained transfer rates (under busmaster DMA) and the SERDES throughput the Cyclone IV can sustain through the pcie port.

I saw it, and it's tempting for the price, but there weren't enough I/ O pins for what I need :( I did consider using a CPLD as a port- expander-type-of-thing, but in the end I think the 605 will be a lot easier...

Maybe You're interested in other manufacturers? E.g. Lattice offers ECP3 FPGA devkit with transceivers and PCI-e connection, plus 1Gb DDR3 memory and two gigabit network transceivers for 99$.

Afaik software tools are also OK from Lattice, since they use Synplify for synthesis. Anyway, check it out, seems like very good price for such board.

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Simon and all, not available at the moment but hopefully soon is a family of boards my company is working on that may help avoid the old... "That's just the way it goes". The concept provides virtual pin-compatibility between FPGAs so one can switch between Xilinx, Altera, or others, as well as upgrade to their newer technologies when available. Bascially, a main board will have all the bells and whistles you'd find on most full featured dev boards (ie., HDMI, USB, UART, etc), but a high density/performance 'socket' for an FPGA specific daughter card.

On the down-side there will be some degradation to the FPGA's performance, IO count, and a few features due to the connectorization but surprisingly not much. On the up-side, one can get much more milleage out of a full-featured main board that's not tied to a particular FPGA technology. The cost will be more if compared to an existing eval board (at least till volumes grow) but the extra value comes from the flexibility that makes our family of boards a better investment. There are other benefits such as 'bake-off' benchmarking and even choosing to use the FPGA daughter cards in production (thereby designing in the same flexibility to a customer's end product). This gets a little disruptive and may be another step toward commoditizing FPGAs but, ... "that's just the way it goes :)"

There're usually many detailed questions but in general, does this sound like something of interest. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks, Tom

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I did see that too, and yes, it's really tempting (for me, it'd be ~ $300 for the board + IP modules I'd want - PCIe + network), but there's a couple of problems:

- It's not clear that the mico32 processor (which appears to be free, itself) will support DDR3 - it only claims support for DDR/DDR2 on the web-page

- The license only runs for a year, and I don't know how aggressively Lattice enforces that. It looks as though you really can't make any new projects after that first year.

- Once this years license expires, the IP will probably cost $995/ year thereafter, unless the promotion is still running a year later, which seems unlikely.

I'm not really too worried about the first of these - I'd expect Lattice to support their boards. The second and third are a concern though. For most people on here, a year's license is fine. You'll all be upgrading hardware/software sufficiently often for business reasons that it's really not an issue. For hobbyists like me though, splashing the cash happens only once every 2 or 3 years - it's just too expensive otherwise. Xilinx seems to have a more-friendly-to-the- hobbyist approach - from reading their licensing faq:

"License expiration for Xilinx software and IP licenses is as follows: - WebPACK, purchased SW and purchased IP licenses never expire, but only enable the set of software and IP versions released before or during your warranty period. - Evaluation and trial licenses for software expire 30 days from the day they were generated. - Hardware evaluation IP license key expiration is four months starting in 11.1 - LogiCORE IP licenses which require no fee do not expire and full LogiCORE IP licenses which you purchase do not expire. However, full license keys only enable versions of the IP core released during or prior to your 1-year warranty period. To access new IP versions and associated enhancements and bug fixes after your initial 1-year warranty period expires, you must renew your support contract annually. "

So, according to that, and assuming the board/sw falls into the first category, I get to keep *using* what I've bought until I buy something new. I just run out of maintenance after the year. Over the 2 or 3 years this board will have to last for, that makes the '605 the better purchase, even if it's more up-front.

Simon.

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I'd definitely be in favor of this kind of effort. IMHO, FPGA development/integration boards are generally too 'integrated' (and hence too expensive), considering that many users have no need for bells and whistles apart from their desire to stay out of the BGA/ multilayer PCB business. A line of low-cost daughterboards with nothing on them but medium-speed I/O connectivity, power management, and the FPGA itself would be welcome. Maybe some pads for an optional DRAM chip.

To some extent we already do some this in our boards and there will be some products announced shortly that will some of the way we are going. The question of cost is always a difficult one and the dev board market isn't usually large numbers and makes it difficult to do consumer level pricing.

On the Xilinx/Altera comparision we have our Raggedstone2

and Raggedtone3 which offer which offer nearly the same thing in the competing technologies. In reality it's a ding dong battle. On these 2 boards Altera wins on the PCIe by offering X4 PCIe hard core whilst Xilinx offers DDR3 and a hard core controller for it. The Xilinx Quad SPI generally is much simpler (coming soon in RS2 with XC6SLX150T versions) but slightly slower than using a loader circuit that we deploy on Raggedstone3 to meet configuration time targets is another difference. After that it is down to the development software.

For a low cost hardware target comparision have a look at our Polmmaddie family

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I looked at your boards, John, because I'd *really* like a x4 PCIe for the co-processor card, but when I went to see if the raggedstone3 board was available, the shop page failed to load (it's just a blank white page). I tried it on Safari and on Firefox before giving up.

The thing is that even if I get one of the third-party boards, I won't get an embedded-cpu license for free, and I'm sort of considering the board to be pretty-much free and I'm paying for the IP when I buy a vendor board... If I were to buy a 3rd-party board, I have to buy the IP (in this case the EDK | NIOS2/DDR) as well...

Simon.

Simon

The board isn't properly live on our shop as yet. We are still completing the qualification tests on this board and that testing is now nearly complete. The board design looks very good so far and at the moment it looks like Issue1 will ship without mods or alteration of the design. Realistically I think they should be available in small numbers in about 4-8 weeks time assuming no major issues are found with a significant ramp in numbers the month or two behind that.

John Adair Enterpo> >

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