Site Home Archive Home FAQ Home How to search the Archive How to Navigate the Archive
Compare FPGA features and resources
Threads starting:
Authors:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Yes, Much shorter than 2ns, but how much shorter is anyone's guess, as the CLKFX output can not have the phase cancelation at these frequencies as CLKFB is not connected (as the DLL doesn't work at these low frequencies). Austin al82 wrote: > Thanks for your reply, > >>From what you say I gather that: > > - CLKFX will always be delayed (from associated CLKIN edge) > - The delay will be short (not likely more than 2ns) > > Is that correct? > > Thank you >Article: 85376
Vladislav Muravin wrote: > Marco, > > sorry, could not resist... > i think it means something like "no 30 days returning policy" :) > Another one would be: "PayAgain and again and again" Roel > V > "Marco" <marcotoschi_no_spam@email.it> wrote in message > news:d87161$m79$1@news.ngi.it... > >>Hallo, >>I would buy a ip core. What does it means: "Available under the terms of >>the SignOnce IP License" ??? >> >>Thanks >>Marco >> > > >Article: 85377
On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 16:13:01 +0200, "Marco" <marcotoschi_no_spam@email.it> wrote: >Hallo, >I would buy a ip core. What does it means: "Available under the terms of >the SignOnce IP License" ??? > >Thanks >Marco Google is your friend, why didn't you ask google? Here is a link that explains "SignOnce IP License": http://www.xilinx.com/ipcenter/signonce.htm Philip Philip Freidin FliptronicsArticle: 85378
hi, I am working with linker scripts for the first time.I want to understand the linker script that the tool generates for my code. what does *(.gnu.linkonce.t*) mean? ThanxArticle: 85379
"Symon" <symon_brewer@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:42a72697_1@x-privat.org... > > > Frankly, yes. Because FPGAs are general purpose devices, your kitchen timer > is my DDR RAM controller or ultra fast sampling circuit. The faster the > edges, the greater the range of applications for a given FPGA. If this means > kitchen timer designers have to learn about SI, well that's the price I'm > willing for them to pay! ;-) OK, 99% agreed. The cutting edge parts shall have cutting edge speed. An no one will argue about Virtex-4 beeing not cutting edge, right? > But, again, Altera's parts have half(ish) the rise time, which means they > can cope with more applications as RAMs go faster. My point is that fast > edges don't preclude any applications; crap designers do. ;-) > The point Dr. Johnson was trying to spin, I mean make, is, I think, that > fast edges in combination with a bad package can be unusable. True, of > course. That's why you can't get new FPGAs in PLCC packages. What I dispute > is whether Altera's packages are that bad at today's rise times. That said, > Xilinx's package is superior in terms of ground bounce. What we need is > Stratix silicon in a Xilinx package! We can make it, IGOR. Charge me another megavolt. HE IS ALIVE!!! There can be only one Frankenstein. ;-) Regards FalkArticle: 85380
dima2882 wrote: > I also noticed that the fitter for ISE 7.1 isn't as efficient. I had a legacy design for an XC9500, and I called Xilinx tech support on an unrelated issue. I was using 6.3, the tech support guy used 7.1, and he couldn't fit my design to the chip. He had to install 6.3 to be able to work on it. It really does seem that the new fitter isn't as efficient. What puzzles me is WHY they would change the 9500 fitter between 6.3 and 7.1 releases. Surely the 9500 qualifies as ancient/'highly stable' ? ie Was there a reason for the change/fit failures ? -jgArticle: 85381
Philip, Thanks for replying to this one. We seem to have some disgruntled users out there who are in a "let's bash Xilinx today" mood. Not very useful to the newsgroup, and not productive at all. Nice to have folks like you come to our defense. AustinArticle: 85382
Austin Lesea wrote: > Erik, > > The parts are not discontinued. Digikey carries them, and we still sell > them. And, we still make them, too. We use our website to showcase the > new products, not the old ones. So when will Xilinx add FPGAs (back?) to their BuyOnline ? -jgArticle: 85383
Symon - On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 10:21:08 -0700, "Symon" <symon_brewer@hotmail.com> wrote: >> That's what I had in mind for the problem statement. But once the >> designer is made aware of the problem, he needs some help in dealing >> with it. That's where a list of recommendations would come in handy. >> >OK, I'll bite. How about this? >1) Group sets of I/Os common to a clock domain together in I/O banks. >Minimise sharing of I/O banks between clock domains. What if a bank has to be shared? Does it help to have an unused buffer zone of pins between clock domains? Does it help to have (hard) ground pins between domains? And just how much does putting different domains into different banks buy in the way of reduced susceptibility? I've been doing that for years, but I have no hard data to tell me what I'm buying, if anything. >2) Isolate the Vccos for each of these banks. Is it better to cut the power plane into separate mini-Vccos, or have a single, low-impedance Vcco plane? (I'm guessing on the latter for all but quasi-analog stuff, such as Vccaux for the DCMs.) At any rate, these are the kinds of questions I'd like to see the vendors tackle, preferably backed up by some lab work. By the way, I've been looking through one of the Xilinx V4 demo board schematics, and it turns out the designers created pseudo-differential I/O signals (i.e., differential signals, one side of which goes only to a termination) in an attempt to lower SSO. I recall hearing that such a thing wouldn't work with Xilinx chips. Guess the story changes from day to day. Take care, Bob Perlman Cambrian Design WorksArticle: 85384
Austin Lesea wrote: >> The parts are not discontinued. Digikey carries them, and we still >> sell them. And, we still make them, too. We use our website to >> showcase the new products, not the old ones. Then why, when I try to search for various part numbers found on Digikey on Xilinx's site do I get no useful results? (specifically anything under ~$50 as appropriate for my projects) For the sole reason that ISE runs on Linux I would prefer to use Xilinx parts. But when Digikey is the only way to get any parts in small quantity, and I can't even determine if the parts they actually do sell have a hope of handling my project, I start looking at putting up with Windoze and Quartus (better interface than ISE anyway, from my limited experience) and going with Altera parts. Not to mention that all the parts on Digikey are afaict ludirously expensive for their capbilities, because they are built with such old processes. Can some give an explanation as to why Digikey does not even offer the newer parts in the first place? I gather there are apparently problems producing the chips in sufficient quantity, but that's never stopped Digikey from at least listing a part as non-stock before. Jim Granville wrote: > So when will Xilinx add FPGAs (back?) to their BuyOnline ? That's all Xilinx would have to do to keep me (and many others from what I read) from jumping to Altera. For the record I have nothing against Altera, but without Quartus running "easily" in Linux, they're mostly out of the running otherwise. I plan on actually using Makefiles and CVS to manage heavily co-dependent C and Verilog, and that gets almost prohibitively annoying and hard with Windoze.Article: 85385
Jim, Good question. I have already asked this internally. I, like you, are awaiting the results... Austin Jim Granville wrote: > Austin Lesea wrote: > >> Erik, >> >> The parts are not discontinued. Digikey carries them, and we still >> sell them. And, we still make them, too. We use our website to >> showcase the new products, not the old ones. > > > So when will Xilinx add FPGAs (back?) to their BuyOnline ? > -jg >Article: 85386
Bob Perlman wrote: > Symon - > > On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 10:21:08 -0700, "Symon" <symon_brewer@hotmail.com> > wrote: > > >>>That's what I had in mind for the problem statement. But once the >>>designer is made aware of the problem, he needs some help in dealing >>>with it. That's where a list of recommendations would come in handy. >>> >> >>OK, I'll bite. How about this? >>1) Group sets of I/Os common to a clock domain together in I/O banks. >>Minimise sharing of I/O banks between clock domains. > > > What if a bank has to be shared? Does it help to have an unused > buffer zone of pins between clock domains? Does it help to have > (hard) ground pins between domains? > > And just how much does putting different domains into different banks > buy in the way of reduced susceptibility? I've been doing that for > years, but I have no hard data to tell me what I'm buying, if > anything. Where the effects are common-mode inductance, and even cap-crosstalk, this grouping all helps. As Peter A. has said, it is the cross-domain noise that has the potential for inflicting most damage. -jgArticle: 85387
Hi All, I would like to use an FPGA to reconfigure another FPGA by loading the new configuration into the other FPGA's EPC configuration device via JTAG. Is this possible? If so, how would I go about doing this? Thanks!Article: 85388
Erik Walthinsen wrote: > Jim Granville wrote: > >> Try mentioning this link, might hurry them along a bit... >> http://www.altera.com/buy/devices/buy-devices.html > > Except that they have '0' stock of most chips themselves. ;-( > >> Xilinx only have CPLDs here : > > As of a month ago, they listed a reasonable selection of in-stock > Spartan3 parts for prototyping work. Apparently they decided they > don't like people actually *buying* their parts. > > I'm pretty much newbie to FPGAs, but I've got in mind a decent-sized > project that needs quantity *1* of a TQ144 or PQ208 chip of no > particular size (an XC2S50 would be underutilized and running at > 48MHz) as glue between a bunch of parts. Unless I can find a way to > get a part for this project, I'll be looking at other vendors. Digi-Key stocks this exact part. OOPs, is is the XC2S50E. I got 5 of them a month ago to start a migration from 5 V Spartan parts. I think they now have some Spartan-3 parts, too. JonArticle: 85389
Hi Symon, > "Ben Twijnstra" <btwijnstra@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:8ae63$42a22d01$d55db008$8159@news.chello.nl... >> Wednesday. I've been to Dr Johnson's lectures before, and I've even found >> his material appliccable to designs running as low as 32MHz. >> > Ben, > Indeed, if you'd read the book ;-) , you'd know it's the rise time and > length of the path that matters, not the toggle rate. Don't I know it... Actually, it's easy to deduct the length of the trace from the ringing frequency. I even ran in to this in 1994 when we had a 16MHz design and used a few 74HCT244 buffers on a bus. We could in the end only get the design working by replacing the buffers with 74LS244s because of all the noise the high slew rate was causing. So no, this is not an FPGA-only problem. Best regards, BenArticle: 85390
Bob, Great thread. See below for my comments, Austin Bob Perlman wrote: > Symon - > > On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 10:21:08 -0700, "Symon" <symon_brewer@hotmail.com> > wrote: > > >>>That's what I had in mind for the problem statement. But once the >>>designer is made aware of the problem, he needs some help in dealing >>>with it. That's where a list of recommendations would come in handy. >>> >> >>OK, I'll bite. How about this? >>1) Group sets of I/Os common to a clock domain together in I/O banks. >>Minimise sharing of I/O banks between clock domains. > > > What if a bank has to be shared? Does it help to have an unused > buffer zone of pins between clock domains? Does it help to have > (hard) ground pins between domains? > > And just how much does putting different domains into different banks > buy in the way of reduced susceptibility? I've been doing that for > years, but I have no hard data to tell me what I'm buying, if > anything. Yes, isolation is a good thing. More unused pins between domains is also a good thing, as there are more ground/Vcco pairs for return currents. But, it is true that adding all the grounds in the world don't help after the first set are added. Maxwell's equations show that return currents always flow next to the source conductor, so adding conductors around the existing return conductor offer little or no benefit, unless the return currents are split between return paths, taking advantage of the extra returns. BART (the rapid transit system of the SF Bay Area) illustrates the common misconception: the third rail is close to one side of the track. 1000V DC: The engineer said that when a train is on the train section, return current is split equally from the supply rail through the train motors back to the returns exactly by 1/2 and 1/2. Wrong. Maxwell's equations (for DC) show that the return current is based on fields, which is based on geometry, so the return current is 2/3 in the closest rail, and 1/3 in the far rail. Just because the engineer said so, did not make reality change, and as a result when the first train location system was activated it showed that there was a train in every section where there was not a train, and no train in the sections that had trains in them (true story). The traffic control center freaked out. The problem could have been solved easily with programmable logic (just invert), but alas, there was no programmable logic in those days. Back to the topic at hand - Virtual grounds are almost useless in the new V4 SparseChevron package, as the grounding is so good, using an IO as a poor man's ground is of little to no benefit. > > >>2) Isolate the Vccos for each of these banks. > > > Is it better to cut the power plane into separate mini-Vccos, or have > a single, low-impedance Vcco plane? (I'm guessing on the latter for > all but quasi-analog stuff, such as Vccaux for the DCMs.) To cut, or not to cut? That is the dilemna. A cut up plane will have much less good high quality capacitance (which is good for byapssing above 100 MHz where bypass caps are almost worthless). But, sometimes you are layer limited, and you just have to do it (cut things up). > > At any rate, these are the kinds of questions I'd like to see the > vendors tackle, preferably backed up by some lab work. If you work with one of our FAE SI experts, we can show you the effectiveness of pcb interplane capacitance on bypassing, and then it is just a question of how good do you really want your bypassing solution to be? More solid planes, results in fewer, or less exotic caps. For example, the X2Y caps (look like a standard surface mount cap with two center electrodes) has remarkably lower self inductance/ESR, and can go a long way to improving the bypassing solution at the expense of ... expense. But often fewer caps are needed, and you can use the split planes as a result. My group (the FPGA Lab) is happy to talk to your FAE and help them with extreme design solutions (where things get tough, and compromises have to be made). > > By the way, I've been looking through one of the Xilinx V4 demo board > schematics, and it turns out the designers created pseudo-differential > I/O signals (i.e., differential signals, one side of which goes only > to a termination) in an attempt to lower SSO. I recall hearing that > such a thing wouldn't work with Xilinx chips. Guess the story changes > from day to day. > Just because we have folks who like to experiment doesn't mean we endorse something, or that it works. They are (were) trying to find ways to improve things. Pseudo-differential has a lot of reasons why it doesn't work, which start with the fact that they are single ended, and the load is not balanced at all. Imagine there is 0.5 pF mis-match between the two IO's: that immediately leads to significant common currents at the edge rates. It turns out if you force the differential balance, you can make such an arrangement better, but it will still be inferior to a real balanced differential driver (like LVDS, or CML of the MGTs). One also has to look at the mismatch in time of two single ended IOs (they are not switcing at the same time like a differential IO), as well as the mismatch at the receiver end: is the receiver perfectly differential balanced? Do the two received waveforms overlap in time 100%? Only "real" LVDS pairs are routed in the package with flight time matching (it is part of the LVDS specification).Article: 85391
Erik, What is vcolo.com doing with FPGAs? Looks like you re-sell computer resources virtually? See below, Austin Erik Walthinsen wrote: > Austin Lesea wrote: > >>> The parts are not discontinued. Digikey carries them, and we still >>> sell them. And, we still make them, too. We use our website to >>> showcase the new products, not the old ones. > > Then why, when I try to search for various part numbers found on Digikey > on Xilinx's site do I get no useful results? (specifically anything > under ~$50 as appropriate for my projects) For the sole reason that ISE > runs on Linux I would prefer to use Xilinx parts. But when Digikey is > the only way to get any parts in small quantity, and I can't even > determine if the parts they actually do sell have a hope of handling my > project, I start looking at putting up with Windoze and Quartus (better > interface than ISE anyway, from my limited experience) and going with > Altera parts. > > Not to mention that all the parts on Digikey are afaict ludirously > expensive for their capbilities, because they are built with such old > processes. > > Can some give an explanation as to why Digikey does not even offer the > newer parts in the first place? I gather there are apparently problems > producing the chips in sufficient quantity, but that's never stopped > Digikey from at least listing a part as non-stock before. All parts are in stock here at the factory (I checked). That a distributor doesn't order them is of course troubling, and another issue. That Digikey doesn't carry the latest and greatest products may be because they offer little to no support. We prefer our distributors to earn their percentages (that they make on the parts). Other distributors do not want to be undersold by someone who offers no services (and we don't see any benefit in that either). If all you need are some samples, you should develop a better relationship with your local X distributor or X representative.Article: 85392
Hi Symon, > From the first demo, the conclusion is :- > > The Altera package suffers from two issues: > > 1.. . Excessively fast signal rise/fall time This is a software setting. Altera for some reason insists on 'standard' slew rates being the fastest, and has had a 'Slow Slew rate' setting ever since the Flex10K. This 'Slow Slew Rate' setting can be set on a per-pin basis and pretty much limits your I/O switching frequency to ~750MHz, but then again, I wouldn't want to use a single-ended standard higher than 350-400MHz anyway unless I had some serious simulation software, a few weeks to spare to get the layout right, and a large supply of aspirin. With differential standards there's no need to turn on the slew rate limiter, so LVDS and other protocols don't cause problems. > 2.. . Over-concentration of power/ground balls in core region > I'd argue that 1) isn't a problem; fast rise time is good, as long as you > know what you're doing. (BTW Xilinx can't compete on risetime because of > their 12.5pF pin capacitance.) Now, 2) could be a SI problem, for which > the Xilinx package is a solution, but I question whether the data > presented are a realistic 'real world' set up. If they are, no-one would > be able to drive DDR ram from an Altera part. Also, the power/ground concentration in the center allows for less headaches when minimizing the number of PCB layers - you can pretty much forget about the inner few rows because they'll be power and ground anyway. Best regards, BenArticle: 85393
"kittyawake@gmail.com" <kittyawake@gmail.com> writes: > what does *(.gnu.linkonce.t*) mean? .gnu. means it's a GNU extension. .linkonce. means the linker will collect all sections with the same name, compare the contents, and only include one of each set of matching sections in the output. I.e. if each object had a .gnu.linkonce.text.foo47 and they were all the same, the final executable would only have one copy of it. The .t* means, essentially, all the text (executable code) sections. .d* would be data, .b* would be bss, etc. The "*" is a wildcard which matches anything.Article: 85394
Hi Fred, "Fred" <Fred@nospam.com> wrote in message news:42a4814e$0$2594$da0feed9@news.zen.co.uk... > 14 week lead time for samples for the XC3S200. How can you prototype with > that? > > It makes worry even more when it comes to manufacture where I might need > quantity. Wow! I miss reading comp.arch.fpga's for a few days ... SUMMARY: Spartan-3 FPGAs are readily available. To speed delivery of Spartan-3 before 1-AUG-2005, append the part number with the four-number code "0974". THE DETAILS: ================================ I did some checking and from appearances, you're right. But as the illustrious U.S. radioman Paul Harvey used to say, "stay tuned for the rest of the story." Xilinx is transitioning the lower-density Spartan-3 FPGAs (XC3S50 through XC3S1500) from the 200 mm wafer production line to the 300 mm line. The larger density Spartan-3 FPGAs (XC3S2000 through XC3S5000) are already built exclusively on the 300 mm line. Xilinx has a policy where we notify customers 90 days in advance of such a change and we cannot ship product from the new fab unless you specifically order us to. This gives customers 90 days to evaluate the new material to see if it affects their production systems. The details are in the following change notice. http://www.xilinx.com/bvdocs/notifications/xcn05009.pdf Starting 1-AUG-2005, all orders will be shipped from the 300 mm line. Until then, all production orders for lower-density Spartan-3 FPGAs are still shipped from the 200 mm line. As a consequence, lead times are artificially increasing during the transition. There are plenty of 300 mm devices in stock. However, due to our notification policy, we can't ship you one of the 300 mm devices unless you specifically ask. You can dramatically improve delivery by appending the part number with the four-number code "0974". For example, "XC3S200-4PQ208C" would become "XC3S200-4PQ208C0974". I've also copied the various Xilinx logistics groups to make sure that our distribution product managers are aware of this issue. The lead-times need to be updated to reflect the 1-AUG-2005 change-over date. While I have your attention (I hope), I'd also like to promote a free feature from the Xilinx MySupport web site that automatically notifies you be E-mail whenever Xilinx issues a change notice. You can also sign up to receive notices whenever we update a data sheet, application note, errata, etc. Just visit the following link. http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_display.jsp?getPagePath=18683 --------------------------------- Steven K. Knapp Applications Manager, Xilinx Inc. General Products Division Spartan-3/-3E FPGAs http://www.xilinx.com/spartan3e --------------------------------- The Spartan(tm)-3 Generation: The World's Lowest-Cost FPGAs.Article: 85395
Berty wrote: > Better use external transistor / Fet as multiple pin can get all burned > due to the fact that they do not open and close at the same exact Or when transitioning, go to Z for a clock between driving high and low in a "break before make" sort of way. JeffArticle: 85396
abilashreddy@yahoo.com wrote: > Hi Group, > Iam not sure if this is the right group to post my query > on,butI would appreciate any kind of information.I am relatively new to > VHDL and am tring to understand whyVHDL gate level descriptions > simulate slower than verilog models.I was told that it was because how Just a random guess, but I would have thought that it could be simply the amount of logic - there's a lot more elements that are simulated post-synthesis, as it's broken down into luts and 'flops. If you simulate at a higher level, then you can skip simulating all these elements, and simply simulate the behavior of the language - For instance (making a few assumptions) - if you have a 32 bit counter, you could model that in a simulator as a uint32_t - taking one instruction on a 32 bit processor to add a number. If you break that down into one-bit operations spread across 32 batches of elements, then it would intuitively take longer, unless there was some optimisation going from netlist to simulation. My 2c, JeremyArticle: 85397
Another disadvantage of schematics is that they are generally in a proprietary format. Which means an old design might not be readable in the latest version of a vendor's schematic tool, while a text file is forever. Also, targeting a different vendor's fpga usually means re-entering the schematic from a different symbol library, while HDL is retargetable with much fewer changes (like none if you're lucky). And thirdly, simulation of a schematic based design is 1-2 orders of magnitude slower than simulating RTL VHDL. The difference between 1 minute and 30 minutes in the iterative design process is huge. JeffArticle: 85398
Hi Patrick, Altera has an updated utility that allows you to set up for non-volatile configuration on the DSP Stratix 1S25 board. To obtain these files, please contact Altera mySupport at: https://mysupport.altera.com/eservice/ Regards, HSArticle: 85399
Hi all, I use Xilinx Vertex2 FPGA. Can I use a 18k ram as 2 single-port ram? Best regards, Davy
Site Home Archive Home FAQ Home How to search the Archive How to Navigate the Archive
Compare FPGA features and resources
Threads starting:
Authors:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z