FPGA Central

Hi there,

Could anybody please let me know what is the approximate price of the
lowest-cost FPGA or CPLD with about 20K Lggic Cells, or even less? The
quantum will be around 10K per year. We will start a very simple
application, and I hope I can find some FPGA less than $5.

Thanks in advance.

Johnson

Johnson,

From the NuHorizons web page FAQ:

"14. How much will Spartan-3 devices cost?
Volume pricing at the end of 2004 will be under $2.95 for the XC3S50 and
under $12 for the XC3S1000, and under $100 for the XCS4000 (based on
250K unit quantities)."

I suggest you contact your local Xilinx rep for pricing on 10K per year qty.

XC3S50 == 50K logic cells.

Austin

Johnson wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> Could anybody please let me know what is the approximate price of the
> lowest-cost FPGA or CPLD with about 20K Lggic Cells, or even less? The
> quantum will be around 10K per year. We will start a very simple
> application, and I hope I can find some FPGA less than $5.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Johnson

"Johnson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] om...
> Hi there,
>
> Could anybody please let me know what is the approximate price of the
> lowest-cost FPGA or CPLD with about 20K Lggic Cells, or even less? The
> quantum will be around 10K per year. We will start a very simple
> application, and I hope I can find some FPGA less than $5.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Johnson

For lowest cost, the Altera MAX II "CPLD" can give you good old fashioned
FPGA functionality without the bells and whistles. The EPM1270 (smaller
than the Xilinx XC3S50) is the first introduced with others scheduled for 2Q
2005. The single-piece pricing on Arrow is ugly now but the later, higher
volume price might be a better fit for your timeframe.

I know I can get the performance out of the Xilinx Spartan-3 but I also know
some implementations can get a better overall solution with a different
device.

I don't have a good feel for the lowest cost FPGA from Lattice, but I'd look
at them as well. Perhaps someone else can fill in this blank.

"Austin Lesea" <[email protected]> wrote
> XC3S50 == 50K logic cells.

You presumably misspoke, here 50K = 50,000 system gates (a.k.a. marketing
gates, dog gates, what have you).

An XC3S50 contains 768 slices, or 1536 4-LUTs and FFs, or 1728 logic cells
by that curious derating understood and beloved (and believed) only by
Xilinx marketing. The rest of us just giggle. See also
http://www.fpgacpu.org/#021129 and its links.

The smallest 3S device with ~20K LCs is an XC3S1500 (26,624 LUTs+FFs, 29952
"LC"s). The 3S1000 is close (15360 LUTs+FFs, 17280 "LC"s).

To my knowledge, nothing has been announced that provides 20 KLUTs for $5 in
any quantity. (Not to mention the configuration memory.) I think the
closest announced EasyPath device is something like ~$13(?) for an XCE3S1500
in quantity with ~$75K(?) NRE.

But Moore's Law will take us there ere long. Make it your ASIC, indeed!

Jan Gray

Hello,

I think that you first must clarify whether you need FPGA or CPLD, which
differe in the concept, capacity, routing resources, and price. CPLD gives
your design more security (does not need external EEPROM) and guaranteed
timing (important for high-speed designs), whereas FPGA provides more
capacity but less security and non-guaranteed timing.
For CPLD, I always go with Lattice M4000 series, providing excellent
fitting/re-fitting resources and capacity. I would not claim on the CPLDs
from other manufacturers since I missed the comparison tracking since '98,
however I would definately recommend to consider Lattice (BTW, they have
free design tools). For FPGA, I go with Xilinx due to a historical issue,
however I believe that there is actually a smoall difference with Altera
FPGA.

--

Regards,
Pavel

"Johnson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] om...
> Hi there,
>
> Could anybody please let me know what is the approximate price of the
> lowest-cost FPGA or CPLD with about 20K Lggic Cells, or even less? The
> quantum will be around 10K per year. We will start a very simple
> application, and I hope I can find some FPGA less than $5.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Johnson

Jan,

Yes, I blew it.

"About a 3S1000 to get close to 20K logic cells (has 17,280)" is one
response I already got last night from a friend. Sorry to have mixed
the gates thing. Something that I, too, don't like about how we count.
I much prefer just counting look up tables and flip flops (at least
that way I am less confused that normal).

Austin

Jan Gray wrote:
> "Austin Lesea" <[email protected]> wrote
>
>>XC3S50 == 50K logic cells.
>
>
> You presumably misspoke, here 50K = 50,000 system gates (a.k.a. marketing
> gates, dog gates, what have you).
>
> An XC3S50 contains 768 slices, or 1536 4-LUTs and FFs, or 1728 logic cells
> by that curious derating understood and beloved (and believed) only by
> Xilinx marketing. The rest of us just giggle. See also
> http://www.fpgacpu.org/#021129 and its links.
>
> The smallest 3S device with ~20K LCs is an XC3S1500 (26,624 LUTs+FFs, 29952
> "LC"s). The 3S1000 is close (15360 LUTs+FFs, 17280 "LC"s).
>
> To my knowledge, nothing has been announced that provides 20 KLUTs for $5 in
> any quantity. (Not to mention the configuration memory.) I think the
> closest announced EasyPath device is something like ~$13(?) for an XCE3S1500
> in quantity with ~$75K(?) NRE.
>
> But Moore's Law will take us there ere long. Make it your ASIC, indeed!
>
> Jan Gray
>
>

Johnson wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> Could anybody please let me know what is the approximate price of the
> lowest-cost FPGA or CPLD with about 20K Lggic Cells, or even less? The
> quantum will be around 10K per year. We will start a very simple
> application, and I hope I can find some FPGA less than $5.

I wish you luck in finding an FPGA at that price in any size at that
quantity. My experience is that unless you are using a large enough
quantity to get a vendor to pay for a new fab, you will be paying about
$10 minimum. I think this has to do with the costs associated with
testing.

It seems that FPGAs will never truly be jellybean parts and I expect the
FPGA vendors want to keep it that way since there is very little margin
in such low prices no matter how efficiently they build them. By
entering a low margin business model they could even become like the
SDRAM vendors and loose a little on each unit they sell, trying to make
it up in the volume!

One other point, using gate counts to estimate chip size is pretty
pointless, even for a rough estimate. The variation in actual gate
count achieved varies so widely and how you measure gate count varies so
widely that the metric is pointless. I guess it could get you to within
an order of magnitude... $5 vs. $50

--

Rick "rickman" Collins

[email protected]
Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY
removed.

Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company
Specializing in DSP and FPGA design URL http://www.arius.com
4 King Ave 301-682-7772 Voice
Frederick, MD 21701-3110 301-682-7666 FAX

Thanks a lot, guys, I really got lots of information and insight.

Johnson