CoolRunner XPLA3 getting axed?

Is the coolrunner XPLA3 getting axed? I noticed that it is no longer a 
link on the xilinx font page.   The online store does not list them on 
the front page(only Cool runner II and the XC9500 Series).   Its also 
slim pickens' when you do find the part you need on Avnet or Nuhorizons. 
Digikey is horrible for Xilinx Now.

When I see this with other IC/MCU vendors I get scared.  I really like 
these chips.  The Cool Runner II series is great but I really dont like 
having the 1.8v Core Requirement (at least with lower speed logic).

I work at a University Research Lab where we typical build 10 or 20 of a 
design before passing it off to a sponsor.  It seems that lately I have 
to *really* pick through to see what is avaialble online before I do a 
design as the chips always seem to be out of stock.

Are all the other brands (Brand A, Brand L) like this as well?  Or 
should I just stop complaining.  I do love the technology but it seems 
that I spend more time finding parts than writing HDL.


Thanks
-Eli

Eli Hughes schrieb:

> Are all the other brands (Brand A, Brand L) like this as well?  Or 
> should I just stop complaining.  I do love the technology but it seems 
> that I spend more time finding parts than writing HDL.

So it may be a good idea to "waste" a few cents and minutes to add a 
linear regulator for 1.8V instead of wasting hours to get not easy 
availabe parts. This hold especially true for a handfull of boards. For 
hundreds or thousands, this is another story.

Regards
Falk

Falk Brunner wrote:
> Eli Hughes schrieb:
> 
>> Are all the other brands (Brand A, Brand L) like this as well?  Or 
>> should I just stop complaining.  I do love the technology but it seems 
>> that I spend more time finding parts than writing HDL.
> 
> 
> So it may be a good idea to "waste" a few cents and minutes to add a 
> linear regulator for 1.8V instead of wasting hours to get not easy 
> availabe parts. This hold especially true for a handfull of boards. For 
> hundreds or thousands, this is another story.
> 
> Regards
> Falk


I guess my frustration goes beyond the Cool Runnerm.  Take the Spartan 
3e.  Its been advertised on the website as the greast thing since sliced 
bread for *over* a year now.  I am sure its a nice chip.  I have been 
wanting to use it.   Click on the online store and select say the 
XC3S100E.   Its says special Qty.  Lead Time Call......   Its obvious 
that there is a diconnect between Marketing and Engineering/Development. 
  I dont mind delays, etc.  Just be up front about.

> So it may be a good idea to "waste" a few cents and minutes to add a
> linear regulator for 1.8V instead of wasting hours to get not easy
> availabe parts.

The thing is, how do you know which will be easily available tomorrow.
They discontinued the old coolrunner from Philips for purely political
reasons, how do you know what will suit them tomorrow. As long
as one firm - no matter which - has monopoly over a technology
things don't look good for us users...
(there is no competitive technology to the coolrunner on the market,
in case you did not know that) .
But then again, as long as there are reasonable people like Peter
and Austin at Xilinx - although I suspect they are a minority - there
is always hope one can eventually get a job done.

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff               Transgalactic Instruments

http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------

Falk Brunner wrote:
> Eli Hughes schrieb:
>
> > Are all the other brands (Brand A, Brand L) like this as well?  Or
> > should I just stop complaining.  I do love the technology but it seems
> > that I spend more time finding parts than writing HDL.
>
> So it may be a good idea to "waste" a few cents and minutes to add a
> linear regulator for 1.8V instead of wasting hours to get not easy
> availabe parts. This hold especially true for a handfull of boards. For
> hundreds or thousands, this is another story.
> 
> Regards
> Falk

>I guess my frustration goes beyond the Cool Runnerm.  Take the Spartan 
>3e.  Its been advertised on the website as the greast thing since sliced 
>bread for *over* a year now.  I am sure its a nice chip.  I have been 
>wanting to use it.   Click on the online store and select say the 
>XC3S100E.   Its says special Qty.  Lead Time Call......   Its obvious 
>that there is a diconnect between Marketing and Engineering/Development. 
>  I dont mind delays, etc.  Just be up front about.

Check the store first, and then the specs?
Most engineers ought to know the substance of marketing by now =)

Eli Hughes schrieb:

> I guess my frustration goes beyond the Cool Runnerm.  Take the Spartan 
> 3e.  Its been advertised on the website as the greast thing since sliced 
> bread for *over* a year now.  I am sure its a nice chip.  I have been 
> wanting to use it.   Click on the online store and select say the 

What can a Spartan 3E do what a Spartan 3 can't? Not much I guess. So 
instead of wasting times with marketing battle, go for another 
(available) IC. Don't forget. We are engineers. We make valuable things 
out of AVAILABLE things. (At least, thats the myth ;-)

Regards
Falk

dp schrieb:

> The thing is, how do you know which will be easily available tomorrow.
> They discontinued the old coolrunner from Philips for purely political
> reasons, how do you know what will suit them tomorrow. As long

Welcome to the real world. Besides, I don't think its thaaat bad. The 
old coolrunners are still in production, "just" a quick acquisition for 
new designs is not possible anymore. So what.

> as one firm - no matter which - has monopoly over a technology
> things don't look good for us users...

In general yes, but I would'nt overstate the problem. AFAIK Xilinx isn't 
ripping off its customers (even if some, eahhh newsgroupers, blame them 
for that.)

> (there is no competitive technology to the coolrunner on the market,
> in case you did not know that).

What about the MACH line from Lattice? The have also a zero power family 
(Z?). And in the case the is truely no competitive technology, we have 
to be glad to have the Xilinx parts at this low prices (uhhh, I could 
work in marketing, right? ;-)

> But then again, as long as there are reasonable people like Peter
> and Austin at Xilinx - although I suspect they are a minority - there
> is always hope one can eventually get a job done.

You can almost allways get the job done, if you don't glue yourself to 
ideal assumptions in a non-ideal world. If one IC is not available, try 
to use another. If this take longer, more troublesome whatever, tell 
your boss you are not McGyver.
And as someone else already stated, this lesson (about marketing blabla 
and utopia release dates) is well know nowadays. If you didn't attend 
this lesson before, you did now ;-)

Regards
Falk

> Welcome to the real world.

Oh, thanks for welcoming me. I was just wondering what this place was.

> Besides, I don't think its thaaat bad.

How many of your designed products have lived long enough
to see a discontinued component.

> You can almost allways get the job done ...

So far I have been able to avoid the "almost". Doing a job
means doing it within a time- and cost frame. When you have
a reasonable number of working designs in your library,
you will find out that unnecessary change of components
only extends the frame.

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff               Transgalactic Instruments

http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------

Falk Brunner wrote:
> dp schrieb:
>
> > The thing is, how do you know which will be easily available tomorrow.
> > They discontinued the old coolrunner from Philips for purely political
> > reasons, how do you know what will suit them tomorrow. As long
>
> Welcome to the real world. Besides, I don't think its thaaat bad. The
> old coolrunners are still in production, "just" a quick acquisition for
> new designs is not possible anymore. So what.
>
> > as one firm - no matter which - has monopoly over a technology
> > things don't look good for us users...
>
> In general yes, but I would'nt overstate the problem. AFAIK Xilinx isn't
> ripping off its customers (even if some, eahhh newsgroupers, blame them
> for that.)
>
> > (there is no competitive technology to the coolrunner on the market,
> > in case you did not know that).
>
> What about the MACH line from Lattice? The have also a zero power family
> (Z?). And in the case the is truely no competitive technology, we have
> to be glad to have the Xilinx parts at this low prices (uhhh, I could
> work in marketing, right? ;-)
>
> > But then again, as long as there are reasonable people like Peter
> > and Austin at Xilinx - although I suspect they are a minority - there
> > is always hope one can eventually get a job done.
>
> You can almost allways get the job done, if you don't glue yourself to
> ideal assumptions in a non-ideal world. If one IC is not available, try
> to use another. If this take longer, more troublesome whatever, tell
> your boss you are not McGyver.
> And as someone else already stated, this lesson (about marketing blabla
> and utopia release dates) is well know nowadays. If you didn't attend
> this lesson before, you did now ;-)
> 
> Regards
> Falk

dp schrieb:

>>Besides, I don't think its thaaat bad.
> 
> 
> How many of your designed products have lived long enough
> to see a discontinued component.

Not so much, since Iam a bit too young to tell stories from the good ole 
days ;-) But I have seen it. About 4 years ago, I did a minor redesign 
because of discontinued parts. A half year ago, I did a major redesign 
on the same unit (all functions that were done using ASICs and FPGAs are 
now inside one little FPGA from brand A)

>>You can almost allways get the job done ...
> 
> So far I have been able to avoid the "almost". Doing a job
> means doing it within a time- and cost frame. When you have
> a reasonable number of working designs in your library,
> you will find out that unnecessary change of components
> only extends the frame.

Right. But this was not the point. The point was that the OP was 
complaining about delayed availibility of components that were announced 
ages ago (ok, lots of month ;-)
So NO EXISTING design uses ANNOUNCED devices.

Regards
Falk

There is ABSOLUTELY NO truth to this rumor. XPLA3 aka CoolRunner is
alive and kicking and finds increasing acceptance in the market.
Disappearance from our website and poor availability data from Avnet or
DigiKey have nothing to do with the health of the product line and its
long-time future.
Rumors like this can become self-fulfilling, that's why I jumped in
immediately.
Will publish additional convincing data soon.
Peter Alfke, Xilinx