Re: Large Spartan3 vs. Small V5

Here is a shot at it,

See below,

Austin

-snip-

So is Xilinx working on another budget-line FPGA?

Yes. Always. It is "our business."

Or are they intending
that small V5 chips replace the Spartan line altogether?

No. We sorted that out, the Virtex line is no longer interested in "small" parts.

What's their
next budget chip with the new LUT structure and when can I look for it?

I can't tell you something like that! One thing you can always count on: Moore's Law. Is 65nm smaller and cheaper? Yes. And 45nm, yes again. And so on.

According to Xilinx's website, the Spartan-3E line is for gate-centric
uses and goes up to 1.2M gates. Yeah. Huge.

For some, yes, others not. It is all about marketing. Sell to the ones who have the money. Cost of mask set, etc. How many did you want?

I just finished a project that uses 4.5M gates (so says the MRP) on
each of eight 2v6000 chips. It's only using 1/3 the block RAM and none
of the MUL blocks on any chip. It only accesses DRAM from one chip. I
want that project on cheap hardware.

Congratulations on your accomplishment...

What chips would you recommend for
this? By cheap I mean $40/chip, not $2000/chip.

Well, four 2V6000s is now proabably replaced by 5VLX220. That doesn't include any intelligent re-targeting to structures that are better suited (ie more compact) or design changes to fit it into a smaller device. 5VLX220 will not be "introduced" until later (just keep watch on the announcements).

As for less than $40 (for a LX220), well, that doesn't seem likely, even at 65nm.

Maybe next time? From the Virtex 1000, to the Spartan 3S1000, the price to the user has diminshed by more than two decades (for the same, or more, logic).
.

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