Xilinx webshop

Following the Spartan 3 availability threads, I visited the Xilinx webshop.
The only FPGA on offer there is the Spartan 3. IIRC the webshop used
to have a much better selection. It seems a bit strange to me to reduce
the (FPGA) offerings to only 1 kind of FPGA and 1 handbook for
a different FPGA.

Questions:
  Why isn't the full product range available at the webshop?
  What are the plans for the webshop?
  Where's the best online place to buy Spartan II in low volume?

DJ
--

Bump!

So, no comment from the otherwise very active Xilinx representants?

I'll rephrase my question:

Will the Xilinx webshop get an increase or decrease in the the selection of
FPGAs in the near future?
Of course, a decrease from the single part would mean FPGA shop gone...

I just want to find a place to buy those nifty chips, you know :-)

DJ
--

"Dr Justice" <sorry@no.spam.wanted> wrote in message
news:98hte.1609$vS6.49@amstwist00...
> Following the Spartan 3 availability threads, I visited the Xilinx
webshop.
> The only FPGA on offer there is the Spartan 3. IIRC the webshop used
> to have a much better selection. It seems a bit strange to me to reduce
> the (FPGA) offerings to only 1 kind of FPGA and 1 handbook for
> a different FPGA.
>
> Questions:
>   Why isn't the full product range available at the webshop?
>   What are the plans for the webshop?
>   Where's the best online place to buy Spartan II in low volume?
>
> DJ
> --
>
>

The situation will get better, much better. This is work in progress,
so I do not want to create confusion or overly optimistic (early)
expectations. But we are (painfully) aware that something must be done,
and it will. Witness the improvements earlier this week...
Peter Alfke

"Peter Alfke" <peter@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:1119544967.668456.249260@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> The situation will get better, much better. This is work in progress,
> so I do not want to create confusion or overly optimistic (early)
> expectations. But we are (painfully) aware that something must be done,
> and it will. Witness the improvements earlier this week...
> Peter Alfke

That's good to hear (despite warnings about early optimism :-)).
I look forward to painless low volume chip-shopping.

Thank you for the hint!

DJ
--

All,

Face it, Peter and I both are absolute true believers in on-line 
shopping.  And we believe that buying FPGAs should be no more painful 
than buying a book at Amazon.com.

Sure, if you want 25 of them, or if you need support and services, you 
may not want to buy online, but rather through your local and helpful 
distributor who will actually send the FAE to you to help (if needed).

(A side note, ever try to return something non-technical and totally 
trivial bought online?  Advice:  just don't even try it, it is often too 
painful with the way most web retailing is done today.  They get your 
credit card number, they ship, they bill.  That is about all they can 
do, or will do.)

That said, we do have to balance all the requirements.  After all, we 
have agreements with many distributors, representatives, and other 
partners.  We have IOS 9000, ISO 14001, TS16949 (basically the only FPGA 
company with this pedegree of Quality Standards approvals).  We have 
international customers.  We have tax laws to meet.  We have 
export/import laws that have to be considered.

Not too mention offering the excellent quality of service all of our 
customers have grown to expect.  We not only have to have an online 
shop, but the damned BEST online shop!

Since you can buy anything you like on line (basically), it seems all 
too easy.

In reality, it is a difficult and complex issue.  There are many pits to 
fall in.

So, optomism is great, but patience is a virtue we may have to ask you 
to indulge us with while we work our way through the maze of issues to 
allow you to simply just be a click away from your parts ...

Austin

Dr Justice wrote:

> "Peter Alfke" <peter@xilinx.com> wrote in message
> news:1119544967.668456.249260@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> 
>>The situation will get better, much better. This is work in progress,
>>so I do not want to create confusion or overly optimistic (early)
>>expectations. But we are (painfully) aware that something must be done,
>>and it will. Witness the improvements earlier this week...
>>Peter Alfke
> 
> 
> That's good to hear (despite warnings about early optimism :-)).
> I look forward to painless low volume chip-shopping.
> 
> Thank you for the hint!
> 
> DJ
> --
> 
> 

Austin Lesea wrote:
> All,
> 
> Face it, Peter and I both are absolute true believers in on-line 
> shopping.  And we believe that buying FPGAs should be no more painful 
> than buying a book at Amazon.com.
> 
> Sure, if you want 25 of them, or if you need support and services, you 
> may not want to buy online, but rather through your local and helpful 
> distributor who will actually send the FAE to you to help (if needed).
<snip>

  You might sell more than you think.
  One common issue with Distis, is many don't like to break SPQ's
- so that places a quantize effect on availability.
  It means there will be both pilot run, and also run-rounding needs.

  Programmable logic is stocked much more poorly than generic 
microcontrollers, simply because the range changes so rapidly.


  TIP for Xilinx: Put the SPQ on the webstore (somewhere), so users can 
see at a glance if contacting the Disti is likely to be helpfull,
or a waste of time...

  I just looked at my XC2C32 data sheet, plenty of order codes (19!),
but not a single SPQ!...

  -jg

NuHorizons has a decent online store selling most varieties of Xilinx
FPGAs/CPLDs. Check them out www.nuhorizons.com

--Neeraj

Jim Granville wrote:
> Austin Lesea wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > Face it, Peter and I both are absolute true believers in on-line
> > shopping.  And we believe that buying FPGAs should be no more painful
> > than buying a book at Amazon.com.
> >
> > Sure, if you want 25 of them, or if you need support and services, you
> > may not want to buy online, but rather through your local and helpful
> > distributor who will actually send the FAE to you to help (if needed).
> <snip>
>
>   You might sell more than you think.
>   One common issue with Distis, is many don't like to break SPQ's
> - so that places a quantize effect on availability.
>   It means there will be both pilot run, and also run-rounding needs.
>
>   Programmable logic is stocked much more poorly than generic
> microcontrollers, simply because the range changes so rapidly.
>
>
>   TIP for Xilinx: Put the SPQ on the webstore (somewhere), so users can
> see at a glance if contacting the Disti is likely to be helpfull,
> or a waste of time...
>
>   I just looked at my XC2C32 data sheet, plenty of order codes (19!),
> but not a single SPQ!...
> 
>   -jg

Peter Alfke <peter@xilinx.com> wrote:
> The situation will get better, much better. This is work in progress,
> so I do not want to create confusion or overly optimistic (early)
> expectations. But we are (painfully) aware that something must be done,
> and it will. Witness the improvements earlier this week...
> Peter Alfke

Configuration devices in the webshop would be appreciated!

-- 
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

On a sunny day (Fri, 24 Jun 2005 09:35:03 +0000 (UTC)) it happened Uwe Bonnes
<bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote in
<d9gk47$kqa$1@lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>:

>Peter Alfke <peter@xilinx.com> wrote:
>> The situation will get better, much better. This is work in progress,
>> so I do not want to create confusion or overly optimistic (early)
>> expectations. But we are (painfully) aware that something must be done,
>> and it will. Witness the improvements earlier this week...
>> Peter Alfke
>
>Configuration devices in the webshop would be appreciated!
I would rather have these in the FPGA itself, as flash.
 1) better security
 2) saves on chip costs
 3) saves on PCB cost
 4) saves work on power up stuff
 5) saves time
 6) saves shipping cost
 7) saves on PCB space 
 8) and if you use a 739 pin connector like AMD processors, then you can just
     send customers an upgrade, they send old one back for re-programming.
 9) more reliable
10) faster power up
..
99999) less power?
beep

Very creative! You should work for Actel / LatticeXP-marketing ;-)

I would reduce your list mainly to better security. E.g. it is simpler to 
socket and ship a $1 8pin SPI-flash than the $$$$ 1000pin FPGA... But 
upgrade via RS-232 or something, as we do, is even better...

Thomas

"Jan Panteltje" <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:1119611642.a327c9d5e28eb26f262ca1e83907e569@teranews...
> On a sunny day (Fri, 24 Jun 2005 09:35:03 +0000 (UTC)) it happened Uwe 
> Bonnes
> <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote in
> <d9gk47$kqa$1@lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>:
>
>>Configuration devices in the webshop would be appreciated!
> I would rather have these in the FPGA itself, as flash.
> 1) better security
> 2) saves on chip costs
> 3) saves on PCB cost
> 4) saves work on power up stuff
> 5) saves time
> 6) saves shipping cost
> 7) saves on PCB space
> 8) and if you use a 739 pin connector like AMD processors, then you can 
> just
>     send customers an upgrade, they send old one back for re-programming.
> 9) more reliable
> 10) faster power up
> ..
> 99999) less power?
> beep