Lattice FPGA

Austin,

Tim is right to be p******
1) sometimes placement of an order depends on the known deliver date
2) if ordered items arrive way too early than you have to pay earlier

so speed delivery (before delivery date) may give quite a bit financial
problems if money is being used wise.
example you know XC3S100E will be delivered W27 so you plan all your
actions for the product that uses
it in such timeline that money to buy them out will be 'free' for use
when the parts arrive, and that the product
other components are also purchased at about the same time and
production is targetted as well.

now if these parts arrive W14 and not W27 then,
1) you will have to pay immediatly
2) the parts will still be laying around til W27 because that when you
get PCB

this is exactly a story I heard from manufacturer of Xilinx based
boards.

Antti

Tim,

I did not intend to be sarcastic.  Perhaps it sounded so.

It is true that when we were on allocation, there were no dates possible 
until you were placed in the queue.

We subsequently had a lot which yielded incredibly well (the beginning 
of a nice and long hard fought for trend).

In any event, I apologize, I didn't intend to offend or insult.  Just 
explain what happens.

If, as you say, we did not give you a date until you ordered, that is 
consistent with something being on allocation:  only those on order have 
dates.  Those not on order are not even in the queue.  At that time, we 
had no idea what the yields would be, so we could not give a delivery date.

Having been so badly beat up (justifiably so) for delivery issues, when 
we actually succeeded, I was shocked to see your complaint, that is all.

It is a Catch-22, as you say.  Works both ways.  We don't know either.

Austin

Tim wrote:

> Austin Lesea wrote
> 
> 
>>If you order them, they will arrive.  I think that is how it is supposed 
>>to work?
>>
>>Sometimes sooner, sometimes on time (and the objective is to never be 
>>late).
>>
>>So don't blame us that we delivered an order, please!
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, I do blame Xilinx. Because the line you give out is that a delivery 
> date cannot be quoted until an order is placed. And if we want to discover 
> the date at which volume will be available, we have to place a large order 
> for delivery ASAP. Are you familiar with Catch-22?
> 
> I am puzzled by the tone of your response. What I posted was more than 
> amiable, considering the treatment dished out by your distributors (for whom 
> I know you take no responsibility) and you use a public forum to dump your 
> sarcasm on me. That was inappropriate.
> 
> 
> 

Antti,

Personally, I think the purchasing agent should refine their negociation 
skills.

If you will not accept an early shipment, that has to be specified in 
the purchase agreement.

Of course, asking the distributor to stock for you (which is effectively 
what you are doing) will cost them money (evening out the 
supply/demand), which will raise the price to you.

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." (TANSTAFL)

We have some control over our yields, but it is in everyone's best 
interests that our yields get better and better.  If the yield jumps up 
(defect denisity jumps down) due to a process improvement and learning 
because we churn out so many wafers, then we will suddenly have all the 
parts we need.  Our our costs go down, our margins go up, and we have 
more room for negociating prices with our customers.

Sounds like we can never make everyone happy.

Don't yield, we get roasted.

Yield well, we get flamed.

Oh well.

Austin

sorry, it wasnt me complained, but as I had heard a similar story to
the posting here, so I posted what I heard. The story was commented
with general remark that things with order and deliveries got worse
since Avnet swallowed Memec. I dont know the all background, but I can
understand that the impossibility to get leadtimes without orders and
orders shipped too early can get people upset. Sure it may have been
that some one did not read the very fine print.

Antti

Austin Lesea wrote:
> Antti,
> 
> Personally, I think the purchasing agent should refine their negociation 
> skills.
> 
> If you will not accept an early shipment, that has to be specified in 
> the purchase agreement.
> 
> Of course, asking the distributor to stock for you (which is effectively 
> what you are doing) will cost them money (evening out the 
> supply/demand), which will raise the price to you.

Anyone remember the old days, when 'distributor' actually meant what it 
says ?

-jg

Gentlemen,

The least you can say, is that this thread is quite of the original
request from OP.
By the time everyone has said what he wanted to say about delivery
issues/availability, we are heading up for Virtex10, Stratix10GX, and
I'll retired.
I find it quite annoying that this happens for every post. (I'm sorry
if I'm picking on somebody)

Regards,

Luc

On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 07:24:14 +1200, Jim Granville
<no.spam@designtools.co.nz> wrote:

>Austin Lesea wrote:
>> Antti,
>> 
>> Personally, I think the purchasing agent should refine their negociation 
>> skills.
>> 
>> If you will not accept an early shipment, that has to be specified in 
>> the purchase agreement.
>> 
>> Of course, asking the distributor to stock for you (which is effectively 
>> what you are doing) will cost them money (evening out the 
>> supply/demand), which will raise the price to you.
>
>Anyone remember the old days, when 'distributor' actually meant what it 
>says ?
>
>-jg

Luc,

We like to talk about things we know.

Sorry.

I myself was really hoping I'd see postings of folks who have GX or SC 
parts (proving they are real).

Austin

lb.edc@telenet.be wrote:

> Gentlemen,
> 
> The least you can say, is that this thread is quite of the original
> request from OP.
> By the time everyone has said what he wanted to say about delivery
> issues/availability, we are heading up for Virtex10, Stratix10GX, and
> I'll retired.
> I find it quite annoying that this happens for every post. (I'm sorry
> if I'm picking on somebody)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Luc
> 
> On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 07:24:14 +1200, Jim Granville
> <no.spam@designtools.co.nz> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Austin Lesea wrote:
>>
>>>Antti,
>>>
>>>Personally, I think the purchasing agent should refine their negociation 
>>>skills.
>>>
>>>If you will not accept an early shipment, that has to be specified in 
>>>the purchase agreement.
>>>
>>>Of course, asking the distributor to stock for you (which is effectively 
>>>what you are doing) will cost them money (evening out the 
>>>supply/demand), which will raise the price to you.
>>
>>Anyone remember the old days, when 'distributor' actually meant what it 
>>says ?
>>
>>-jg

Hi Austin,

we had Lattice vice president visiting here last week. The SC parts are
real. We did however not got the SC PCIe card loaner yet, all the
boards are out, so we are on waitinglist to get to play with the SC
board - we are hoping to test 4 lane PCIe on it.

1 maco can do 4 lane PCIe, this IP core solution comes from Lattice, 8
lane PCIe solution will be offered by northwest

SC25 parts should be available, the promise was sample delivery in 3
weeks max if I recall correctly.

So hum, I can assume that the parts actually are real, if the vice
talked about boards that are in evaluation by some clients, then there
must be parts on them :), but until today I havent seen and SC or ECP
silicon yet.

EC, XP, machXO are all real (I have used EC and XP), as of RAM based I
would skip EC/ECP and only use ECP2, for nonvolatile solutions macXO if
8by8 mm 0.5mm BGA is needed for space constraints or XP3/XP3 (cheaper
than large machXO).

as of SC more, the SERDES is specified up to 3.4G (but is expected to
work up to 3.8G)

low cost ECP2 is specified to work with DDR2 400, and can possible be
speficied up to DDR2 530 (that depends if... could be, not guaranteed
yet). For low cost FPGA its pretty damn good. I have on board on my
desk where Spartan3 was considered, but cancelled because of (possible)
problems with DDR2 memory.

>From Lattice FAE (was visiting today) well he was very surprised to
hear about my fpga logic fabric measurements indicating that S3 is WAY
slower than V4 despite using the same technology. Lattice is not using
performance reduction on ECP2 so you get the low cost FPGA that works
at fabric speed that are normal for the technology. Eg high performance
and low cost.

Of course there are things Lattice does badly also, ECP2 has
nonvolatile OTP securtiy key, but SC does not have it ! but it would
most useable in SC..

Ah, SC15 is possible the only modern high end PFGA with SERDES that is
available in FT256 (or same size) footprint - FX12 that is in same
sized package doesnt have serdes.

hum, Lattice SoC design environment is coming too, if someone is
wondering :) uses Wishbone for interconnect.

Was it On topic now for the OP?

Antti

Antti,

OK, Lattice is real, sampling with demo boards that are available.

Good.

Austin


Antti wrote:

> Hi Austin,
> 
> we had Lattice vice president visiting here last week. The SC parts are
> real. We did however not got the SC PCIe card loaner yet, all the
> boards are out, so we are on waitinglist to get to play with the SC
> board - we are hoping to test 4 lane PCIe on it.
> 
> 1 maco can do 4 lane PCIe, this IP core solution comes from Lattice, 8
> lane PCIe solution will be offered by northwest
> 
> SC25 parts should be available, the promise was sample delivery in 3
> weeks max if I recall correctly.
> 
> So hum, I can assume that the parts actually are real, if the vice
> talked about boards that are in evaluation by some clients, then there
> must be parts on them :), but until today I havent seen and SC or ECP
> silicon yet.
> 
> EC, XP, machXO are all real (I have used EC and XP), as of RAM based I
> would skip EC/ECP and only use ECP2, for nonvolatile solutions macXO if
> 8by8 mm 0.5mm BGA is needed for space constraints or XP3/XP3 (cheaper
> than large machXO).
> 
> as of SC more, the SERDES is specified up to 3.4G (but is expected to
> work up to 3.8G)
> 
> low cost ECP2 is specified to work with DDR2 400, and can possible be
> speficied up to DDR2 530 (that depends if... could be, not guaranteed
> yet). For low cost FPGA its pretty damn good. I have on board on my
> desk where Spartan3 was considered, but cancelled because of (possible)
> problems with DDR2 memory.
> 
>>From Lattice FAE (was visiting today) well he was very surprised to
> hear about my fpga logic fabric measurements indicating that S3 is WAY
> slower than V4 despite using the same technology. Lattice is not using
> performance reduction on ECP2 so you get the low cost FPGA that works
> at fabric speed that are normal for the technology. Eg high performance
> and low cost.
> 
> Of course there are things Lattice does badly also, ECP2 has
> nonvolatile OTP securtiy key, but SC does not have it ! but it would
> most useable in SC..
> 
> Ah, SC15 is possible the only modern high end PFGA with SERDES that is
> available in FT256 (or same size) footprint - FX12 that is in same
> sized package doesnt have serdes.
> 
> hum, Lattice SoC design environment is coming too, if someone is
> wondering :) uses Wishbone for interconnect.
> 
> Was it On topic now for the OP?
> 
> Antti
> 

Austin Lesea wrote:
> Antti,
> 
> OK, Lattice is real, sampling with demo boards that are available.
> 
> Good.

Shouldn't that have been 'bummer!' ? :)

-jg