Spartan3 availability

There seems to be some confusion about Spartan3 availability. According 
to a Xilinx press release in October, several Spartan3 chips should be 
in production. However, Insight Memec, the UK distributor, has just told 
me that they haven't any in stock and don't even know when they will be 
getting some! They were able to give me some prices, though.

Does anyone know what is going on?

Leon
-- 
Leon Heller, G1HSM
Email: aqzf13@dsl.pipex.com
My low-cost Philips LPC210x ARM develpment system:
http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller/lpc2104.html

Hi Leon,
Same situation here in Germany.
I ordered Spartan-3 FPGAs in September. My distributor cannot tell me when
I'll get them.
It seems that Xilinx serves the "big players" first and does not care about
small customers at all !
An "unofficial" statement from a Xilinx employee was "Spartan-3 is for
high-volume customers only"
I believe they have yield problems.

Maybe someone from  Xilinx can comment this.

-Manfred Kraus


"Leon Heller" <aqzf13@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:3fe1fea1$0$25666$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com...
> There seems to be some confusion about Spartan3 availability. According
> to a Xilinx press release in October, several Spartan3 chips should be
> in production. However, Insight Memec, the UK distributor, has just told
> me that they haven't any in stock and don't even know when they will be
> getting some! They were able to give me some prices, though.
>
> Does anyone know what is going on?
>
> Leon
> -- 
> Leon Heller, G1HSM
> Email: aqzf13@dsl.pipex.com
> My low-cost Philips LPC210x ARM develpment system:
> http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller/lpc2104.html
>

"Manfred Kraus" <makra7960@tiscali.de> writes:
> Same situation here in Germany.  I ordered Spartan-3 FPGAs in
> September. My distributor cannot tell me when I'll get them.  It seems
> that Xilinx serves the "big players" first and does not care about
> small customers at all !  An "unofficial" statement from a Xilinx
> employee was "Spartan-3 is for high-volume customers only"

That shouldn't be a surprise, since it's the same thing that happened
with the Spartan 2.  It was nearly a year between availability to
high-volume customers, and availability to everyone else.

> Maybe someone from  Xilinx can comment this.

Seems unlikely that you'll get any official comment.  They allocate the
limited production where it will do them the most good.  I would do the
same in their position.

If you're not going to buy in high volumes, you shouldn't try to use the
latest bleeding-edge chips.  That's true of chips of any sort, not just
FPGAs.

Hate to say it, but this is why I use Altera.  I can get Cyclones -- today.
And their free tools support the entire family.

Hard to beat that.


"Leon Heller" <aqzf13@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:3fe1fea1$0$25666$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com...
> There seems to be some confusion about Spartan3 availability. According
> to a Xilinx press release in October, several Spartan3 chips should be
> in production. However, Insight Memec, the UK distributor, has just told
> me that they haven't any in stock and don't even know when they will be
> getting some! They were able to give me some prices, though.
>
> Does anyone know what is going on?
>
> Leon
> --
> Leon Heller, G1HSM
> Email: aqzf13@dsl.pipex.com
> My low-cost Philips LPC210x ARM develpment system:
> http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller/lpc2104.html
>

Eric Smith wrote:

> "Manfred Kraus" <makra7960@tiscali.de> writes:
> 
>>Same situation here in Germany.  I ordered Spartan-3 FPGAs in
>>September. My distributor cannot tell me when I'll get them.  It seems
>>that Xilinx serves the "big players" first and does not care about
>>small customers at all !  An "unofficial" statement from a Xilinx
>>employee was "Spartan-3 is for high-volume customers only"
> 
> 
> That shouldn't be a surprise, since it's the same thing that happened
> with the Spartan 2.  It was nearly a year between availability to
> high-volume customers, and availability to everyone else.
> 
> 
>>Maybe someone from  Xilinx can comment this.
> 
> 
> Seems unlikely that you'll get any official comment.  They allocate the
> limited production where it will do them the most good.  I would do the
> same in their position.
> 
> If you're not going to buy in high volumes, you shouldn't try to use the
> latest bleeding-edge chips.  That's true of chips of any sort, not just
> FPGAs.

To be fair to Xilinx, I missed this:

"Pricing and Availability
The XC3S50, XC3S200, and XC3S400 Spartan-3 devices with 50,000, 200,000, 
and 400,000 system gates respectively are available for less than 
$6.50*. The XC3S1000 Spartan-3 device with 1 million system gates is 
also available for under $12.00*. The entire Spartan-3 family will be 
available in volume production in early 2004 from distributors 
worldwide, or direct from Xilinx at www.xilinx.com/spartan/."

It does imply that some devices are available now, however. Perhaps they 
are simply not available from distributors until early next year.

Leon
-- 
Leon Heller, G1HSM
Email: aqzf13@dsl.pipex.com
My low-cost Philips LPC210x ARM develpment system:
http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller/lpc2104.html

Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com> wrote in message news:<qhr7z1bk75.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>...
> "Manfred Kraus" <makra7960@tiscali.de> writes:
> > Same situation here in Germany.  I ordered Spartan-3 FPGAs in
> > September. My distributor cannot tell me when I'll get them.  It seems
> > that Xilinx serves the "big players" first and does not care about
> > small customers at all ! this.
> 
> Seems unlikely that you'll get any official comment.  They allocate the
> limited production where it will do them the most good.  I would do the
> same in their position.

That's not entirely true. At least very small quantities (single
trays) gain a lot of design wins without hurting the volume shipments
to the big players.
The real problem are the arrogant big distributors in europe (and
xilinx as it does not understand that these distributors are a
problem)

I once had a case where Insight plainly lied to me about the
availability of samples in munich. Munich told me, that they had none,
but the Insight devisions in the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and UK
just told me "Please order in Munich, they have stock".

A Xilinx representative in the UK was very helpful in convincing
Insight to send me the chips, but it took him a lot of emails and
phone calls.

I said before that Xilinx really needs a small distributor in Europe
beside the big guys Insight and Avnet.

Peter Alfke said that there is hope....

Kolja Sulimma

Patrick MacGregor <patrickmacgregor@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:u6CdnY2YoIl05X-iRVn-uw@comcast.com...
> Hate to say it, but this is why I use Altera.  I can get Cyclones --
today.
> And their free tools support the entire family.


Aye, but to be fair, how long has Cyclone been out now?


Nial (with no real preference between A or X).

------------------------------------------------
Nial Stewart Developments Ltd
FPGA and High Speed Digital Design
www.nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk

Leon Heller <aqzf13@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:


: To be fair to Xilinx, I missed this:

: "Pricing and Availability
: The XC3S50, XC3S200, and XC3S400 Spartan-3 devices with 50,000, 200,000, 
: and 400,000 system gates respectively are available for less than 
: $6.50*. The XC3S1000 Spartan-3 device with 1 million system gates is 
: also available for under $12.00*. The entire Spartan-3 family will be 
: available in volume production in early 2004 from distributors 
: worldwide, or direct from Xilinx at www.xilinx.com/spartan/."

: It does imply that some devices are available now, however. Perhaps they 
: are simply not available from distributors until early next year.

That's probably marketing, that put out the note above.

The most recent datasheet
(http://direct.xilinx.com/bvdocs/publications/ds099-1.pdf) dated April
2003 on page 4 Product Ordering and availability still lists all devices in
parenthesis, with
> 3. Parentheses indicate that a given product is not yet released to 
>    production. Contact sales for availability information.

I guess if some parts would already be in general availability the technical
people would feel worth the update to that datasheet.

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

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

>Aye, but to be fair, how long has Cyclone been out now?

But you were able to buy small quantities early... not after
a year - IMHO.


-- 
Jerry

Leon Heller wrote:
> 
> Eric Smith wrote:
> 
> > "Manfred Kraus" <makra7960@tiscali.de> writes:
> >
> >>Same situation here in Germany.  I ordered Spartan-3 FPGAs in
> >>September. My distributor cannot tell me when I'll get them.  It seems
> >>that Xilinx serves the "big players" first and does not care about
> >>small customers at all !  An "unofficial" statement from a Xilinx
> >>employee was "Spartan-3 is for high-volume customers only"
> >
> >
> > That shouldn't be a surprise, since it's the same thing that happened
> > with the Spartan 2.  It was nearly a year between availability to
> > high-volume customers, and availability to everyone else.
> >
> >
> >>Maybe someone from  Xilinx can comment this.
> >
> >
> > Seems unlikely that you'll get any official comment.  They allocate the
> > limited production where it will do them the most good.  I would do the
> > same in their position.
> >
> > If you're not going to buy in high volumes, you shouldn't try to use the
> > latest bleeding-edge chips.  That's true of chips of any sort, not just
> > FPGAs.
> 
> To be fair to Xilinx, I missed this:
> 
> "Pricing and Availability
> The XC3S50, XC3S200, and XC3S400 Spartan-3 devices with 50,000, 200,000,
> and 400,000 system gates respectively are available for less than
> $6.50*. The XC3S1000 Spartan-3 device with 1 million system gates is
> also available for under $12.00*. The entire Spartan-3 family will be
> available in volume production in early 2004 from distributors
> worldwide, or direct from Xilinx at www.xilinx.com/spartan/."
> 
> It does imply that some devices are available now, however. Perhaps they
> are simply not available from distributors until early next year.

It is not so much a matter of them not being available, it is more a
question of how you are trying to get them.  You need to talk to your
distributor and get them to line up a few chips for you.  I have not
gotten mine yet, but I have been assured that they will be coming in the
next month.  

-- 

Rick "rickman" Collins

rick.collins@XYarius.com
Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY
removed.

Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company
Specializing in DSP and FPGA design      URL http://www.arius.com
4 King Ave                               301-682-7772 Voice
Frederick, MD 21701-3110                 301-682-7666 FAX