| ??? 03/20/07 22:13 Modified: 03/20/07 22:15 Read: times |
#135455 - Numbers ... what are the numbers? Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Andy Peters said:
Erik Malund said:
There has been umpteen posts re FPGA lately, what happened to the CPLD. Basically, what happened is that you can buy an XC3S100E in the 100-pin VQFP package AND its config EPROM for less than you can buy a 256-macrocell CoolRunner CPLD. Neither supports 5V I/O (not an issue for me). If you need 5V I/O, then you can pay more for the 95xx series. Perhaps you could provide some representative numbers, say, in dozen-lots. I find I can't rely on the local distributors, as they often ovestimate XILINX prices by may hundreds of dollars per piece. They once quoted me price of $1008 per unit for parts we bought from a competitor for $4.15 in lots of <25. That would explain why there haven't been any purchases from Avnet since then (2003). Now that they've bought Insight, I don't know whom to believe. And once Spartan 3AN parts, with built-in config EPROM (which is also user accessible), become widely available, the last reason for using a CPLD (no external config memory that the unscrupulous can copy) will go away.
-a I'm curious ... How do those Spartan 3AN parts price out as compared with "normal" Spartan-3 or 3E parts where you are? You don't suppose Erik's query in that other thread was about the smaller CPLD's, e.g. 95108, downto 9532 or the XL versions? When you use <72 macrocells and <30 I/O's it seems silly to buy a 100k-gate FPGA. Thta's the smallest, these days, isn't it? Of course, if the cost is right, I guess it's justifiable. RE |
