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From: MM on 21 Jun 2010 18:30
Ed,

We have a successful product based on V4FX, which uses pretty much every
resource on that chip (PPC, MGTs, DSP48s, etc). We are looking at designing
a higher performance version of that product. The only Xilinx path we have
at the moment is V5, which is already 2 generations behind and the
performance gain we will get is just barely enough... On the other hand, V8
or whatever it will be called seems to be too far away... In other words, I
have to tell you that I don't appreciate Xilinx dropping PPC from the
product line before a replacement was actually ready... That's not to
mention cost of porting everything embedded to ARM when the replacement
actually comes...


/Mikhail






"Ed McGettigan" <ed.mcgettigan(a)xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:368a1eff-30d6-47b6-bec9-7330e15b5ee6(a)d8g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
On Jun 21, 11:27 am, Antti <antti.luk...(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
> the X-7 roadmap and all device table are no online,
> and the ARM11 is coming is also all public knowledge, but.. where? in
> what family?
>
> spartan is dead, now is Artix, und Kintex? but where is ARM11?
>
> in BULLSHITIX-8 release?
>
> I wonder. of course its very interesting to see how much mess Xilinx
> is able
> to organize with the 7 series, right now Xilinx online shop list
> exactly 2 devices of Spartan-6ES both going to avnet no stock
> there was initial stock of 45 pieces of Spartan-6 at digikey
> after that was depleted digikey has not received any new s-6 silicon.
>
> so, when comes spartan-6 general availability?
> does it makes to wait?
> or maybe it makes more sense to wait the Artix-7?
> or maybe..look for alternatives?
>
> Antti

With great trepidation I write the following.

Details on the future product with an ARM Cortex A9-MPcore (not ARM11)
were not announced today. There is some limited information online
here: http://www.xilinx.com/technology/roadmap/processing-platform.htm

While the product name of Spartan will stop with the current Spartan-6
Family. The concepts that the Spartan name embodies, low cost, high
volume and low power, will continue under the new Artix Family name.

I understand your criticisms of the Spartan-6 production availability
over the last few months. If you check the distributor stocking
levels over the next 1-2 months you will see rapid improvement in this
area.

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.


From: Ed McGettigan on 21 Jun 2010 18:54
On Jun 21, 3:29 pm, John Adair <g...(a)enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
> They would be better concentrating on just getting the announced
> Spartan-6 and Virtex-6 families actually out there in some numbers. I
> am having to switch my team to doing Altera boards whilst we are in
> limbo land between Spartan-3/Virtex-5 and nearly not available parts
> of Spartan-6/Virtex-6. As everyone who knows us we have been strong
> supporters of the Xilinx product line but we can't do anything without
> silicon. The 144 week lead times Xilinx/Avnet combination that often
> comes up just makes it worse and I have several new development boards
> ready  to launch subject to actually having silicon to put on them.
>
> The new things coming do look good but I will surprised if they are
> really going t be available within 2 years and that might as well be
> 50 years as far as me deploying people into product development based
> on these parts. A lot will depend on what price, and what power
> profile, the new parts have. We all remember the Excalibar non-
> starter.
>
> There does seem to be something of a marketing war between Altera and
> Xilinx and I think this isn't helping. They both have good products
> currently but it wouldn't be the first time one or other went off and
> lost sight of what customers actually wanted.
>
> John Adair
> Enterpoint Ltd.
>
> On 21 June, 19:27, Antti <antti.luk...(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > the X-7 roadmap and all device table are no online,
> > and the ARM11 is coming is also all public knowledge, but.. where? in
> > what family?
>
> > spartan is dead, now is Artix, und Kintex? but where is ARM11?
>
> > in BULLSHITIX-8 release?
>
> > I wonder. of course its very interesting to see how much mess Xilinx
> > is able
> > to organize with the 7 series, right now Xilinx online shop list
> > exactly 2 devices of Spartan-6ES both going to avnet no stock
> > there was initial stock of 45 pieces of Spartan-6 at digikey
> > after that was depleted digikey has not received any new s-6 silicon.
>
> > so, when comes spartan-6 general availability?
> > does it makes to wait?
> > or maybe it makes more sense to wait the Artix-7?
> > or maybe..look for alternatives?
>
> > Antti- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

> The 144 week lead times Xilinx/Avnet combination that often

I have seen the same and it is just the result of faulty data. I had
flagged this earlier and thought that it was being fixed, but it
appears to have fallen through the cracks somewhere.

> We all remember the Excalibar non-starter.

That was an Altera product line (NIOS, MIPS, ARM processor+FPGA), not
a Xilinx one.

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.
From: John_H on 21 Jun 2010 19:20
On Jun 21, 6:11 pm, Ed McGettigan <ed.mcgetti...(a)xilinx.com> wrote:
>
> With great trepidation I write the following.
> ...

I sincerely appreciate the voice of an engineer to help temper what
appears to be a marketer's shameful act of offering vaporware to help
obfuscate the "series 6" introduction woes.

I don't use "vaporware" in a very negative sense but I thought the
FPGA marketing people had learned their hard lessons that promising
something way, way, way in advance of production is a bad thing.

"I'd like an XC7A20-FTG256 please, any speed grade as long as the
price is decent and the tools support the chip properly."

Despite the mention of "early access" in the online teaser, I see a
too-recent history of the road to production being long and labored.

I'm excited for the future. But since every calendar year is like 15
years in the life of an FPGA (figured like dog-years) we'll see
childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood transition toward middle-
aged by the time I expect we'll see parts.

Please help convince your marketing people to look at what's happened
in the many, many years leading up to this announcement. Learn from
those mistakes or repeat them. Happy engineers are profitable
engineers.
From: John Larkin on 21 Jun 2010 19:45
On Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:45:47 -0700, Rob Gaddi
<rgaddi(a)technologyhighland.com> wrote:

>On 6/21/2010 11:27 AM, Antti wrote:
>> the X-7 roadmap and all device table are no online,
>> and the ARM11 is coming is also all public knowledge, but.. where? in
>> what family?
>>
>> spartan is dead, now is Artix, und Kintex? but where is ARM11?
>>
>> in BULLSHITIX-8 release?
>>
>> I wonder. of course its very interesting to see how much mess Xilinx
>> is able
>> to organize with the 7 series, right now Xilinx online shop list
>> exactly 2 devices of Spartan-6ES both going to avnet no stock
>> there was initial stock of 45 pieces of Spartan-6 at digikey
>> after that was depleted digikey has not received any new s-6 silicon.
>>
>> so, when comes spartan-6 general availability?
>> does it makes to wait?
>> or maybe it makes more sense to wait the Artix-7?
>> or maybe..look for alternatives?
>>
>>
>> Antti
>
>Right now I'm working on two S6 projects, both of which are absolute
>disasters due to problems with the toolchain. My DRAM problem from a
>month ago, Xilinx ultimately told me was my problem and they washed
>their hands of it. Now on my other project, version 12 of the tools
>uses 10% more of the chip than version 11 and neither is willing to
>respect a simple IOB=FORCE. I've got a WebCase crawling along on it,
>but so far have been trained to not expect much from that process.

Their silicon is quite good. But Xilinx seems to be in a place I've
seen some other big-technology companies: their software and software
culture are so broken they may never be fixed.

The solution is simple: they should totally open up the architecture.
Then all sorts of 3rd party EDA vendors would rush to offer us
competitive software, spot tools and whole chains. That would soon
give us choices between quality tools, and light a fire under the
chairs of their in-house guys.

John


From: Randy Yates on 21 Jun 2010 22:16
John Larkin <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
> [...]
> Their silicon is quite good. But Xilinx seems to be in a place I've
> seen some other big-technology companies: their software and software
> culture are so broken they may never be fixed.
>
> The solution is simple: they should totally open up the architecture.
> Then all sorts of 3rd party EDA vendors would rush to offer us
> competitive software, spot tools and whole chains. That would soon
> give us choices between quality tools, and light a fire under the
> chairs of their in-house guys.

The linux version of the 12.1 ISE is a joke: custom build scripts,
separate library directories, custom bashrc entries required, etc. (as
opposed to an RPM and use of the system libraries).
--
Randy Yates % "The dreamer, the unwoken fool -
Digital Signal Labs % in dreams, no pain will kiss the brow..."
mailto://yates(a)ieee.org %
http://www.digitalsignallabs.com % 'Eldorado Overture', *Eldorado*, ELO
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