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XPLA3 going obsolete?

I am looking at using the XPLA3 in a new design and am having trouble finding an evaluation board. So I started looking around and see that Xilinx seems to be severely curtailing support of these parts. There Xilinx no longer offers evaluation boards and I can't find many third party boards that are still offered.

On the bright side, when I did a search at Nuhorizons for XCR3128, I got lots of hits. That alone would not give me confidence, but not only did I get the XCR3128XL that I need to use, I found the XCR3128 without the XL which is an even older part. If they are still selling those parts, I guess I can expect to see the XCR3128XL around for quite a while.

The Coolrunner II may be a bit lower power, but the XPLA3 parts are nearly as low power for our application and only require a single power voltage. That makes them *more* power efficient. I just wish Xilinx provided as much support for the XPLA3 parts as they do for the Coolrunner II.

Are there any advantages of the Coolrunner II parts that I am missing? I see they have input hysteresis, but otherwise they seem pretty much the same as the Coolrunner XPLA3.

Reply to
rickman
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CoolrunnerII:

- has FF's which can toggle on both clock edges. So you can e.g. divide easily by 1.5.

- optional schmitt trigger inputs

- optional bus hold or pullup or floating inputs

- has an internal clock divider (/2../16) mode on >=128mc's.

- has slightly more product terms than CR XPLA3

- several I/O banks, cpld can be used as level shifter

- has more I/O standards than CR XPLA3 on >=128mc's

- data gate for more power save control

- new design can be flashed via jtag, but operation of old design is still running till next POR

- cheaper and faster than CR XPLA3

CoolrunnerII disadvantages:

- no 5V tolerant inputs

- dedicated JTAG port, can not be used for user data transfer through jtag cable (as CR XPLA3 can)

all Xilinx CPLD's do not have input diodes to VCC, makes them useful for hot pluggin. Serial resistors for e.g. 5V input tolerance need an extra diode to vcc, e.g. bar43S or bat54S.

MIKE

--
www.oho-elektronik.de
OHO-Elektronik
Michael Randelzhofer
FPGA und CPLD Mini Module
Klein aber oho !
Reply to
M.Randelzhofer

You really know the CPLDs. I have not used them in a while and I had forgotten a lot of this. One feature of the XPLA3 may make the selection for me. We have a requirement to be able to reprogram all of the reprogrammable devcies in the system without disassembling the unit. The board this chip will go on will only have SPI connecting it from the main general purpose processors (GPP). I can use the JTAG signals as the SPI port when in user mode. If I add one signal to the interface to switch the XPLA3 pins back to JTAG mode, it will then be fully reprogrammable over the same signals as the SPI port. I will have to make sure that the GPP can bit bang these IO pins, but it would save me having to add an MCU to the board just to reprogram the CPLD!

The other candidate for this socket is the Lattice ispMACH4128 part. So far I have not gotten great support. But I can't complain, they did provide me with a full copy of ispLever. I need to check to make sure their parts can be reprogrammed without adding a whole JTAG port to the interface.

Reply to
rickman

What are the relative prices ? I find that is a good indication of EOL, when they start putting "don't bother us prices on the older parts" :)

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

I checked with our CPLD folks in Xilinx, and here is their answer:

"Absolutely no planned obsolescence for XPLA3. We never made a widely circulated XPLA3 devel> I am looking at using the XPLA3 in a new design and am having trouble

Reply to
Peter Alfke

Well thanks for the answer. I have been out looking for an eval board for the XPLA3 and I am having trouble finding a decent one. Digilent has one with a "solderless breadboard" which is pretty pointless these days. Otherwise, the only one I can find has to be ordered from India. I was hoping the one listed on the Xilinx web site as being from Avnet was available, but I can find neither hide nor hair yet.

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Peter Alfke wrote:

Reply to
rickman

I can make you whatever you want!

rickman wrote:

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Reply to
Eli Hughes

For $200? I can make a board too... in fact, that is what I am going to do right after I evaluate the three CPLD candidates.

Eli Hughes wrote:

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Reply to
rickman

We might have something that would provide a platform in a few weeks. It is a design that has a lot of other things on it but we might be able to part populate and give you about 88 i/o.

John Adair Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Broaddown2. The Ultimate Spartan3 Development Board.

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Reply to
John Adair

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