how much costs the Artix 7 devices?

Got a newsletter with an advertisment for Xilinx' new Artix 7 devices:

http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/artix-7/index.htm

It says "low cost", but how low is low? Is there a distributor who has
stocked it or shows at least a lead time? And there is no non-BGA
package for it (like TQFP) anymore?

-- 
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

Frank Buss wrote:
> Got a newsletter with an advertisment for Xilinx' new Artix 7 devices:
> 
> http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/artix-7/index.htm
> 
> It says "low cost", but how low is low? Is there a distributor who has
> stocked it or shows at least a lead time? And there is no non-BGA
> package for it (like TQFP) anymore?
> 

I got the vaporware ad, too.  I checked the franchised distributors,
but none of them even acknowledge the existence of Artix-7.  My guess
is that "shipping" means something different to Xilinx than it does
to you and me.  Probably they have sampled the parts to some early
adopters.

-- Gabor

Gabor wrote:
> Frank Buss wrote:
>> Got a newsletter with an advertisment for Xilinx' new Artix 7 devices:
>>
>> http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/artix-7/index.htm
>>
>> It says "low cost", but how low is low? Is there a distributor who has
>> stocked it or shows at least a lead time? And there is no non-BGA
>> package for it (like TQFP) anymore?
>>
> 
> I got the vaporware ad, too.  I checked the franchised distributors,
> but none of them even acknowledge the existence of Artix-7.  My guess
> is that "shipping" means something different to Xilinx than it does
> to you and me.  Probably they have sampled the parts to some early
> adopters.
> 
> -- Gabor

I forgot to add - the reason why I was looking was to see availability
more than pricing.  Early pricing is generally different from pricing
a year or more into production.  I also wanted to know which parts
were "shipped."  Usually Xilinx starts with a part somewhere in the
middle of the density spectrum, but it's not clear where they would
start with Artix-7 - perhaps at the high end to try to recover more
NRE costs?  Most of us interested in low-cost FPGA's are more likely
to want the smallest part, which still has 100K "Logic Elements"
(multiply LUT's times 1.6 for LE's).  And I wouldn't hold my breath
waiting for non-BGA packaging in 7-series parts.

-- Gabor

They started putting PRs out about these devices out over 2 years ago.

Don't believe anything Xilinx says until they are in stock.

Gabor wrote:
> Gabor wrote:
>> Frank Buss wrote:
>>> Got a newsletter with an advertisment for Xilinx' new Artix 7 devices:
>>>
>>> http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/artix-7/index.htm
>>>
>>> It says "low cost", but how low is low? Is there a distributor who has
>>> stocked it or shows at least a lead time? And there is no non-BGA
>>> package for it (like TQFP) anymore?
>>>
>>
>> I got the vaporware ad, too.  I checked the franchised distributors,
>> but none of them even acknowledge the existence of Artix-7.  My guess
>> is that "shipping" means something different to Xilinx than it does
>> to you and me.  Probably they have sampled the parts to some early
>> adopters.
>>
>> -- Gabor
> 
> I forgot to add - the reason why I was looking was to see availability
> more than pricing.  Early pricing is generally different from pricing
> a year or more into production.  I also wanted to know which parts
> were "shipped."  Usually Xilinx starts with a part somewhere in the
> middle of the density spectrum, but it's not clear where they would
> start with Artix-7 - perhaps at the high end to try to recover more
> NRE costs?  Most of us interested in low-cost FPGA's are more likely
> to want the smallest part, which still has 100K "Logic Elements"
> (multiply LUT's times 1.6 for LE's).  And I wouldn't hold my breath
> waiting for non-BGA packaging in 7-series parts.
> 
> -- Gabor

OK, it took some digging, but I found the press release:

http://press.xilinx.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=212763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1715211&highlight=

Apparently they are starting with the XC7A100T (smallest device).

-- Gabor

On Wed, 1 Aug 2012 06:24:02 -0700 (PDT)
Jon <jon@beniston.com> wrote:

> They started putting PRs out about these devices out over 2 years ago.
> 
> Don't believe anything Xilinx says until they are in stock.

Can you think of a semi vendor for whom that statement _isn't_ true?

-- 
Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com
Email address domain is currently out of order.  See above to fix.

Gabor wrote:
> 
> OK, it took some digging, but I found the press release:
> 
> http://press.xilinx.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=212763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1715211&highlight=

Thanks. This was from July 17, 2012: "Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today
announced first shipments of its Artix™-7 Field Programmable Gate Array
(FPGA) family."

Well, let's take pot luck when they will really ship it to end customers :-)

> Apparently they are starting with the XC7A100T (smallest device).

This would be good for my project. I was asking, because a CPLD is just
by a factor of 3 of 4 too small, so any small FPGA device would work.
But I guess the new Artix devices would be still more expensive than
e.g. the Spartan 3A, which I hope will be produced for some more years.

-- 
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

Frank Buss <fb@frank-buss.de> writes:

> Gabor wrote:
>> 
>> OK, it took some digging, but I found the press release:
>> 
>> http://press.xilinx.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=212763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1715211&highlight=
>
> Thanks. This was from July 17, 2012: "Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today
> announced first shipments of its Artix&#4294967295;-7 Field Programmable Gate Array
> (FPGA) family."
>
> Well, let's take pot luck when they will really ship it to end customers :-)
>
>> Apparently they are starting with the XC7A100T (smallest device).
>
> This would be good for my project. I was asking, because a CPLD is just
> by a factor of 3 of 4 too small, so any small FPGA device would work.
> But I guess the new Artix devices would be still more expensive than
> e.g. the Spartan 3A, which I hope will be produced for some more years.

The 7A100 is *massive* though (some smaller Artix devices got dropped last year IIRC):

* ~100K "logic cells" (63k 6-LUTs, 127k FFs), 240 DSP blocks, nearly 5Mbit Block RAM!

for a small cheap FPGA you still want Spartan 6 - smallest is 6SLX4:

* ~4K "logic cells" (2400 6-LUTs, 4800 FFs), 8 DSP blocks, 216Kb Blockram.

Cheers,
Martin

-- 
martin.j.thompson@trw.com 
TRW Conekt - Consultancy in Engineering, Knowledge and Technology
http://www.conekt.co.uk/capabilities/39-electronic-hardware

> The 7A100 is *massive* though (some smaller Artix devices got dropped last year IIRC):
> 
>

Does anyone (without NDA) knows why the smaller devices got dropped, if there will some smaller devices reappear, and what the costs for "normal" quantities of the 7A100 are?

Regards,

Thomas

Martin Thompson wrote:
> 
> The 7A100 is *massive* though (some smaller Artix devices got dropped last year IIRC):
> 
> * ~100K "logic cells" (63k 6-LUTs, 127k FFs), 240 DSP blocks, nearly 5Mbit Block RAM!
> 
> for a small cheap FPGA you still want Spartan 6 - smallest is 6SLX4:
> 
> * ~4K "logic cells" (2400 6-LUTs, 4800 FFs), 8 DSP blocks, 216Kb Blockram.

Thanks, this looks good. Just 2 EUR more expensive at Digikey than the
Spartan 3, but more features. I think I'll use a 6SLX4.

BTW: this is my project, which I want to upgrade to a FPGA:

http://www.ohwr.org/projects/c64cartridge/wiki

Should be hobby user friendly, so no BGA.

-- 
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss