Embedded Processors/Serdes

Does anyone know of another FPGA (other than Virtex series from Xilinx) that
has an embedded processor comparable to the PowerPC 405 as well as 3Gbps
Serdes?

"=2E..Altera continues to sell Excalibur devices, this product family is
not recommended for new designs. Designs requiring embedded processors
should consider Altera's Nios=AE II processor.

Excalibur devices integrate a 200-MHz processor with the APEX=99 20KE
FPGA architecture, balancing the price, performance, and system
integration requirements of system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC)
designs."

Not sure if this is just research or product development, but you could
still get Excalibur devices.
Eric

blah wrote:
> Does anyone know of another FPGA (other than Virtex series from Xilinx) that
> has an embedded processor comparable to the PowerPC 405 as well as 3Gbps
> Serdes?
> 
> 

No there isn't anything else on the market or announced.  The only
FPGAs with hard embedded processors and high speed serial transceivers
are from Xilinx.

  Virtex-II Pro  - PowerPC405 (up to 400 MHz) & Transceivers (up to  3.125  Gbps)
  Virtex-II ProX - PowerPC405 (up to 400 MHz) & Transceivers (up to  6.250  Gbps)
  Virtex-4 FX    - PowerPC405 (up to 450 MHz) & Transceivers (up to 10.3125 Gbps)

Ed

There is also Tensilica, Stretch and a raft of other mixed
hardware-software computing companies (startups) out there that try to
combine some FPGA fabric with a processor, but they don't make as much
noise as the 2 bigger players. They probably don't have Serdes either.

I don't get the impression the Excalibur/Arm is being further
developed, a 1 shot  offering for Arm users.

johnjakson at usa ...

If you could live with an external PPC, Lattice and Altera have both a
FPGA fabric with Serdes on it.
Altera: Startix GX
Lattice: ORTx2G5 (Ethernet), ORSOx2G5 (SONET) where x stands for 4 or
8 (# of channels)  delivering up to 3.7Gbps Serdes channels with
excellent Jitter specs

One suggestion: get away from the on board processor. It kills your
SerDes performance.

Luc

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:53:21 GMT, "blah" <blah@blah.ca> wrote:

>Does anyone know of another FPGA (other than Virtex series from Xilinx) that
>has an embedded processor comparable to the PowerPC 405 as well as 3Gbps
>Serdes?
>

Eric wrote:
> "...Altera continues to sell Excalibur devices, this product family is
> not recommended for new designs. Designs requiring embedded processors
> should consider Altera's Nios� II processor.
> 
> Excalibur devices integrate a 200-MHz processor with the APEX� 20KE
> FPGA architecture, balancing the price, performance, and system
> integration requirements of system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC)
> designs."
> 
> Not sure if this is just research or product development, but you could
> still get Excalibur devices.
> Eric
> 

You can probably still get the Altera EPXA1, EPXA4 or EPXA10 devices, but
they have been mostly erradicated from the Altera web site and they don't
want you to use them as you noted above.

    http://www.altera.com/products/devices/arm/arm-index.html

Also, these devices don't include a high speed transceiver as the OP wanted.

Ed

Eric wrote:
> "...Altera continues to sell Excalibur devices, this product family is
> not recommended for new designs. Designs requiring embedded processors
> should consider Altera's Nios� II processor.
> 
> Excalibur devices integrate a 200-MHz processor with the APEX� 20KE
> FPGA architecture, balancing the price, performance, and system
> integration requirements of system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC)
> designs."
> 
> Not sure if this is just research or product development, but you could
> still get Excalibur devices.
> Eric
> 

You can probably still get the Altera EPXA1, EPXA4 or EPXA10 devices, but
they have been mostly eradicated from the Altera web site and they don't
want you to use them as you noted above.

    http://www.altera.com/products/devices/arm/arm-index.html

Also, these devices don't include a high speed transceiver as the OP wanted.

Ed

Luc wrote:
> If you could live with an external PPC, Lattice and Altera have both a
> FPGA fabric with Serdes on it.
> Altera: Startix GX
> Lattice: ORTx2G5 (Ethernet), ORSOx2G5 (SONET) where x stands for 4 or
> 8 (# of channels)  delivering up to 3.7Gbps Serdes channels with
> excellent Jitter specs
> 
> One suggestion: get away from the on board processor. It kills your
> SerDes performance.
> 
> Luc
>

By "on board processor" I'm assuming that you mean in-FPGA processor.

I'm not sure where you got the impression that the PowerPC in the
Virtex family effects the operation of the SerDes/MGTs, but this is
not accurate.  We have many customers that use both in their system
with no issues and we have multiple application notes showing designs
using both PowerPC and MGTs.

I personally have done a lot of analysis of Virtex-II Pro MGT operation
here at Xilinx and have never seen a higher bit error due to the PowerPC
being active.  The PowerPC uses the same transistor design rules as the
rest of the FPGA fabric and therefor has no process impact on the MGT
performance either.

Ed

"Eric" <ericjohnholland@hotmail.com> writes:

> "...Altera continues to sell Excalibur devices, this product family

Excalibur does not have a 3Gbps serdes.

But what about the NIOS-II in a Stratix GX?

Petter
-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

Petter Gustad wrote:
> "Eric" <ericjohnholland@hotmail.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>"...Altera continues to sell Excalibur devices, this product family
> 
> 
> Excalibur does not have a 3Gbps serdes.
> 
> But what about the NIOS-II in a Stratix GX?
> 
> Petter

But, then it wouldn't have an "embedded processor comparable to
the PowerPC 405".  :-)

Ed