spartan 2 vs Spartan 3

Is there much difference between a spartan 2 and 3 if its for relativel
small projects? Is a virtex product a major step up?

Secondly is 200K gates very small for a fpga? I know you coul
implement alot in 200K on an ASIC - but i persume its a completel
different story with an fpga

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HDLnewbie wrote:
> Is there much difference between a spartan 2 and 3 if its for relatively
> small projects? Is a virtex product a major step up?
> 
> Secondly is 200K gates very small for a fpga? I know you could
> implement alot in 200K on an ASIC - but i persume its a completely
> different story with an fpga?
> 

"Gates" is largely a meaningless number for FPGAs.  A "200,000 gate" 
Spartan device is, however, enough to implement a pretty sophisticated 
project including several microcontroller cores.

FPGAs range anywhere from "15,000 gates" (400-ish LUTs) to tens of 
millions; price varies accordingly from single to four (or five?) digit 
numbers in U.S. dollars.

	-hpa

HDLnewbie wrote:
> Is there much difference between a spartan 2 and 3 if its for relatively
> small projects? Is a virtex product a major step up?
> 
> Secondly is 200K gates very small for a fpga? I know you could
> implement alot in 200K on an ASIC - but i persume its a completely
> different story with an fpga?
> 

"Gates" is largely a meaningless number for FPGAs.  A "200,000 gate" 
Spartan device is, however, enough to implement a pretty sophisticated 
project including several microcontroller cores.

FPGAs range anywhere from "15,000 gates" (400-ish LUTs) to tens of 
millions; price varies accordingly from single to four (or five?) digit 
numbers in U.S. dollars.

	-hpa