Xilinx ISE drops support for more parts

> ISE is just the GUI front end for the tools, it's not the important part
> of the Xilinx tool suite. 

As you may have read in one of my prior posts, we use the Alliance
tool set.  Preaching about what the tools are is no value to me. We
have been using them for years. So this is no value.

> was rewritten for the 5.x release. The 6.x release is going to be 64 bit
> as well as supporting native Linux, so that means that every important

I would rather them stay focused on making a better product under MS
than remove resources to work on LINUX and possibly add more problems
for themselves. Just my preference.  I guess all the major tool people
are porting their code anyway so we will see.  Nothing to do with the
original posting, but fun to talk about.
 
> I'm not talking for Xilinx, but I do talk to them all the time. 

I'm sure most of us do.


> moment to drop Mac support. The same thing goes for Xilinx and Spartans.
> No one is doing new designs with the original Spartan family, so it's not
> worth Xilinx spending any money putting in support for Spartans in their
> new tool sets. 

If the code were structured, supporting the older devices would not be
a problem.

> The old tools are completely adequate for doing anything
> that you need to do with a Spartan. 

Agree, but again, they drive different and have their own bugs that
you need to remember.

> Just because there is a new better
> faster tool set available doesn't mean that the old stuff has suddenly
> vanished from the face of the earth. 

No value.  


> Disk space is cheap, you can have as
> many versions of the tools as you want on a system, all you have to do to
> switch between one rev and another is change an environment variable.

Again, does not help the original problem.

> All software has bugs and x.0 software has lots of bugs. 

Disagree.

> Xilinx is
> actually better than most but whenever they add a new family or do a major
> rewrite there are bugs. I did an Altera Stratix design last year and every
> piece of software in their design chain was broken, starting with the
> Verilog models which wouldn't even compile. I've never had that level of
> problems with Xilinx but I've certainly encountered my share of bugs in
> their stuff over the years.

Have used Altera for seven years or so and have had good results.   

> My point is that the support for an old part in a new tool wouldn't be any
> better than the initial beta release of a new part. 

If they don't address known bugs that would be the case.  

> The difference being
> is that with a new part lots of people are using it so that the software
> bugs get found and fixed. With the obsolete part there will be hardly
> anyone using it so the bugs aren't going to get found, the fixes aren't
> going to get made, and the software quality will be beta forever. 

No value.

> With the
> tool set that existed at the end of the parts mainstream life the software
> was mature. You benefit from the years of cumulative bug fixes that had been
> applied, that's the stuff you want to be using if you have to make a
> change to an old part.

Thanks to Xilinx, this is the way you have to operate. So again, your
not saying anything of value.

> As I said before my experience with Altera has been much worse then with
> Xilinx. 

I would have to say my experience has been a wash between the two.  

> The kind of bugs that I encountered with the Altera tool set
> indicated that they hadn't done any QA at all. 

Sounds like some of the problems I find with Xilinx. Even you yourself
just posted about all the bugs you seem to find in the Xilinx tools. 
It's bad when they know the bugs are there and don't have the
resources to address them on a major release.