NEWS: LeopardLogic has ceased operations. It
wasnt directly FPGA but rather 
asic with part of it as configurable fpga fabric.

Cypress is also out of PLD business silently, well that was to be expected.

humm, who is next?

antti

Antti Lukats wrote:
> NEWS: LeopardLogic has ceased operations. It wasnt directly FPGA but rather 
> asic with part of it as configurable fpga fabric.
> 
> Cypress is also out of PLD business silently, well that was to be expected.
> 
> humm, who is next?

  Yes, but ST has entered the fray, with new partial FPGA offerings, 
that seem well thought out.
  I did smile when I read one press release, that said they have two 
versions of their eval boards, one that allowed an external FPGA to
develop, and then use their internal one.
  A good idea, and usefull to the developer, but perhaps more indicative
of a Tool Flow that's just a little green, perhaps ?
  Those issues improve over time.

-jg

"Jim Granville" <n...@designtools.co.nz> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:436124b3$1...@clear.net.nz...
> Antti Lukats wrote:
>> NEWS: LeopardLogic has ceased operations. It wasnt directly FPGA but 
>> rather asic with part of it as configurable fpga fabric.
>>
>> Cypress is also out of PLD business silently, well that was to be 
>> expected.
>>
>> humm, who is next?
>
>  Yes, but ST has entered the fray, with new partial FPGA offerings, that 
> seem well thought out.
>  I did smile when I read one press release, that said they have two 
> versions of their eval boards, one that allowed an external FPGA to
> develop, and then use their internal one.
>  A good idea, and usefull to the developer, but perhaps more indicative
> of a Tool Flow that's just a little green, perhaps ?
>  Those issues improve over time.
>
> -jg
>
hum, where did you find this?
i am also looking at STW22000 news all the time, but its seems kinda 
vaporware or at least not obtainable ?

antti 

>Cypress is also out of PLD business silently,
well that was to be expected.

Who is in the PLD business these days?  Anybody still making 22V10s as
compared to CPLDs?

How about smaller parts?  Are things like 20R8s pad limited now?

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Hal Murray wrote:
>>Cypress is also out of PLD business silently, well that was to be expected.
> 
> 
> Who is in the PLD business these days?  Anybody still making 22V10s as
> compared to CPLDs?

Yes, Atmel and ICT ( now Anachip ), and also Lattice and in phase-out 
Cypress. Lattice do an ISP version of the venerable 22V10.
We still use 16V8s, which are actually the lowest cost PLDs
( in spite of the marketdroid claims from Altera...)

> 
> How about smaller parts?  Are things like 20R8s pad limited now?

Nope, they have not changed the die design on the smaller parts in
a long time.

To try and cover a little of the SPLD area, Xilinx did add MLF packages
to the coolrunner, [ but that is dual-voltage, and low Vcc only, so
there are some areas it cannot be applied to].

These pacakges also do not show yet on the Xilinx store....
-jg

Antti Lukats wrote:

> "Jim Granville" <n...@designtools.co.nz> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
> news:436124b3$1...@clear.net.nz...
> 
>>Antti Lukats wrote:
>>
>>>NEWS: LeopardLogic has ceased operations. It wasnt directly FPGA but 
>>>rather asic with part of it as configurable fpga fabric.
>>>
>>>Cypress is also out of PLD business silently, well that was to be 
>>>expected.
>>>
>>>humm, who is next?
>>
>> Yes, but ST has entered the fray, with new partial FPGA offerings, that 
>>seem well thought out.
>> I did smile when I read one press release, that said they have two 
>>versions of their eval boards, one that allowed an external FPGA to
>>develop, and then use their internal one.
>> A good idea, and usefull to the developer, but perhaps more indicative
>>of a Tool Flow that's just a little green, perhaps ?
>> Those issues improve over time.
>>
>>-jg
>>
> 
> hum, where did you find this?
> i am also looking at STW22000 news all the time, but its seems kinda 
> vaporware or at least not obtainable ?
> 
> antti 

Antti,
  Here is the link
http://www.st.com/stonline/press/news/year2005/p1711p.htm

ST seem to have two branches of ARM+FPGA, this one they call SPEAr,
and they claim samples now, Eval PCBs in Dec....
Price of $12/Volume, 200K FPGA, ADC, 3 x HS-USB(!), Ethernet,
SDRAM and I think SPI-SerialFlash boot ?

-jg

"Jim Granville"
<n...@designtools.co.nz> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:4...@clear.net.nz...
> Antti Lukats wrote:
>
>> "Jim Granville" <n...@designtools.co.nz> schrieb im
Newsbeitrag 
>> news:436124b3$1...@clear.net.nz...
>>
>>>Antti Lukats wrote:
>>>
>>>>NEWS: LeopardLogic has ceased operations. It wasnt directly FPGA but 
>>>>rather asic with part of it as configurable fpga fabric.
>>>>
>>>>Cypress is also out of PLD business silently, well that was to be 
>>>>expected.
>>>>
>>>>humm, who is next?
>>>
>>> Yes, but ST has entered the fray, with new partial FPGA offerings, that 
>>> seem well thought out.
>>> I did smile when I read one press release, that said they have two 
>>> versions of their eval boards, one that allowed an external FPGA to
>>>develop, and then use their internal one.
>>> A good idea, and usefull to the developer, but perhaps more indicative
>>>of a Tool Flow that's just a little green, perhaps ?
>>> Those issues improve over time.
>>>
>>>-jg
>>>
>>
>> hum, where did you find this?
>> i am also looking at STW22000 news all the time, but its seems kinda 
>> vaporware or at least not obtainable ?
>>
>> antti
>
> Antti,
>  Here is the link
> http://www.st.com/stonline/press/news/year2005/p1711p.htm
>
> ST seem to have two branches of ARM+FPGA, this one they call SPEAr,
> and they claim samples now, Eval PCBs in Dec....
> Price of $12/Volume, 200K FPGA, ADC, 3 x HS-USB(!), Ethernet,
> SDRAM and I think SPI-SerialFlash boot ?
>
> -jg
>
read carefully - the SPEAr is customized eAsic.
the fabric is e-beam programmed.

antti

Antti Lukats wrote:
>>>hum, where did you find this?
>>>i am also looking at STW22000 news all the time, but its seems kinda 
>>>vaporware or at least not obtainable ?
>>>
>>>antti
>>
>>Antti,
>> Here is the link
>>http://www.st.com/stonline/press/news/year2005/p1711p.htm
>>
>>ST seem to have two branches of ARM+FPGA, this one they call SPEAr,
>>and they claim samples now, Eval PCBs in Dec....
>>Price of $12/Volume, 200K FPGA, ADC, 3 x HS-USB(!), Ethernet,
>>SDRAM and I think SPI-SerialFlash boot ?
>>
>>-jg
>>
> 
> read carefully - the SPEAr is customized eAsic.
> the fabric is e-beam programmed.

  Well, seems you are right, but one needs to go three layers down.

The marketdroid that wrote the link above, decided eBEAM
might scare off some customers, so better to use words
like "configurable logic" & "unprecedented flexibility and time to
market".

  You have to go deeper into the lower pages, and voila,
words like NRE and eBEAM start to appear.

  Next questions most customers will ask, is what exaclty is 'low NRE', 
and what volumes does this approach really kick-in at ?

-jg

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 20:25:19 +0200, "Antti
Lukats" <a...@openchip.org> wrote:
>NEWS: LeopardLogic has ceased operations. It wasnt directly FPGA but rather 
>asic with part of it as configurable fpga fabric.
>
>Cypress is also out of PLD business silently, well that was to be expected.
>
>humm, who is next?
>
>antti


The death of Leopard Logic is in line with my estimates on seeing their
"product" presentation 2 or 3 years ago. It was impossible to tell whether
they were selling

1) FPGAs
2) FPGA IP (as in FPGA fabric for insertion into your ASIC)
3) Design of FPGA fabric service (as in competing with Pilkington, another
   loser organization)

I don't think they knew either.


Here's my theory (it's "Just a Theory", so you can replace it with anything
                   you like  :-)

Philip Says:
"FPGAs are such incredibly complex parts to design right, and have such
 extensive software, support, applications, IP, education, and etc...
 that unless it is ALL that you do, you will fail"

Your whole company has to be mono-focussed on FPGAs just to survive.


AMD/MMI tried and failed
Intel tried and failed
Ti tried and failed
Motorola tried and failed
National Semiconductor tried and failed
Toshiba tried and failed
NEC tried and failed
Plessy tried and failed
HP tried and failed
ATT tried and failed
Philips/Signetics tried and failed
Waferscale tried and failed
Cypress tried and failed
(I wonder who I have forgotten from this list that will be upset?)
Atmel tried and hasn't yet failed, but it does not look good.


The above list is of companies that do/did other stuff, and then
tried to do FPGAs as well. There are of course a long list of
startups that only wanted to do FPGAs, that have either failed,
been acquired, or continue to dig through the scraps that Xilinx
and Altera and Lattice miss.


When Pasquale Pistorio (ST President and CEO) in January 2004
said that they would be doing FPGA's I had a good laugh
  http://tinyurl.com/ch3a7

because My Theory says they will fail.

"The move follows the shut down of an expensive, ill-fated R&D
 effort aimed at putting ST into the FPGA market."

   http://www.embedded.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163105052

When ST announced that they were going to make their tool chain
public domain "to encourage research" it certainly did not sound
like "Plan A"  :-)


So in answer to your question Antti, My Theory says ST will be
the next one to pull the plug, or more likely, it will just
quietly die away, and you will stop seeing press releases.
The products that have FPGA + something else integrated together
will be custom type parts (ASIC) that no-one will order.

Just a Theory,

Philip Freidin

"Philip Freidin"
<p...@fliptronics.com> wrote in message 
news:m...@4ax.com...
> Your whole company has to be mono-focussed on FPGAs just to survive.
> AMD/MMI tried and failed
> Intel tried and failed
...
> (I wonder who I have forgotten from this list that will be upset?)

Vantis -- bought out by Lattice before their FPGA ever made it to production. 
(Anyone out there ever get engineering samples?)  Vantis did have various 
useful, inexpensive CPLDs that I designed into several products over time.

> Atmel tried and hasn't yet failed, but it does not look good.

Their FPSlic product is unique enough it probably won't die anytime soon. 
It's kind of a "gentle introduction to SOC design," IMO -- much easier to get 
into then one of the ARM or PowerPC + massive FPGA offerings.

> The above list is of companies that do/did other stuff, and then
> tried to do FPGAs as well.

Ah... so maybe that does cover Vantis?

---Joel