[Fpga-synth] New FPGAs

[Eric Brombaugh]

Magnus Danielson wrote:
> Nicholas Gregorich skrev:
>> The DDR hard IP is interesting, closing timing on high speed DDR 
>> designs is not trivial. Along with the announcement from Altera today 
>> (high end Stratix IV GT with 11.3 Gbps transceivers and mid range 
>> Arria II GX with 3.75 Gbps transceivers and PCIe hard IP) its obvious 
>> that high speed transceivers are currently driving the FPGA market.
> 
> Depends on what you do, but it is a heavy dope when you do more high-end 
> stuff. Building large busses doesn't work as it use to, you need the 
> pins for memory interfaces. The DDR hard IP is a late but welcome addition.

The DDR chip on the S3Esk is almost useless because the interface is 
such a hurdle to get over. Hard IP for the controller might have made it 
easier. Hard to say...

> MGTs in the 10 GB/s range is needed for a varity of interfaces.
> 
> PCI-X solves another issue, wide control-bus.
> 
> Parallel can be used in the neighborhood and serial if you are going 
> anywhere... but as speed rises the "neighborhood" shrinks and we want 
> pins for other things. Serial links within boards is becomming a 
> necessity and besides, isn't big magic anymore.

I'm seeing a lot more parts using these links for board level stuff too. 
TI has a bunch of ADCs out that use SERDES to send data at fairly high 
sample rates. Probably targeted at medical/imaging apps.

> It is good that the V6 and S6 is released, now we want the silicon also.

Yesterday I was talking about this with one of my buddies who used to 
work at Avnet in their contract FPGA design group. His take on Xilinx 
announcements vs actual silicon availability is that you should be 
prepared to wait a year after the announcement before you can buy the 
chips. Not holding my breath.

> Xilinx has to start running again since they have lost pace and Altera 
> got into distance of them. The competition just got healthy.

I've got so much invested in Xilinx tools that I don't follow Altera 
much these days. I've noticed that the Cyclone parts do seem to be a bit 
cheaper & fatter than the Spartan 3* family. No idea how well they work 
in actual use though. That said, a little leapfrog competition is always 
good for the end user. I hope AMD vs Intel heats up again too.

Eric