What about chips for production?

Our in-house Xilinx guru says Xilinx has a pattern of releasing new chips that are intended for development kits only and even have special XXX part numbers that you can not order. He says it typically takes a year or so before you can get production versions of new Xilinx chips. As an example he told he has been following the Xilinx press announcements that a Linux core has been coming for a year or two but as far as he knew it was still vaporware.

Does anyone have a feel on this or previous experience? Is a Zynq product something that should not be targeted for shipping products until perhaps 2014?

-Ed

PS: Man those captchas used here make this the most annoying forum I have *ever* used without a doubt. I have to display 5 or 6 imaged before I even see one that I have a reasonable chance of succeeding with. Every time you logon, post, reply it's captcha, captcha, captcha! I am going captch CRAZY !!! Is somebody getting a captcha commission or something?

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

Ed,

First, thanks for your interest!

Let me address a few things:

XXX silicon:

Xilinx does in-fact have a number of different versions of chips that get released prior to the final production silicon. These often make their way onto development kits for "first look" customers to use and try out. Zedboard, as well as the ZC702 Xilinx development kit have production silicon on them. This practice of releasing initial silicon with different part numbers is in line with what all silicon manufactures do, as it is a way for customers to 'test drive' the part before it is in 100% production.

Linux:

Xilinx has had a working version of the Linux kernel for a number of their devices (PPC cores as well as MicroBlaze) for many many years. We also have a version of the 3.x kernel that we maintain that is intended to run on Zynq. You can see this running in action on a qemu Virtual Machine (VM) and play around with it if you would like. There are also instructions on how to pull it from our git server as well as compiler it.

Landing Page: http://wiki.xilinx.com/
Git Repo: http://git.xilinx.com/

I'm not sure why your co-working things that it is vapor ware, as you can see it is very real. Please do pass the above links along to him so he can see for himself.

Availability:

The Zynq-7000 EPP has 4 devices in it's family. The XC7Z020 device is the first of these devices being released, and is what is on the Zedboard device. This is available today! (which is kind of has to be to be on the Zedboard :p) If you are interested in purchasing Zynq for a production product, contact your local Xilinx representative or Avnet account manager - they can provide timelines as well as pricing for this device and the other three devices in the family.

Captcha:

I'll pass along your concerns :D
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 bhfletcher over 13 years ago

ZedBoard currently has ES silicon. This is not production silicon. ES silicon does have errata, which are published on xilinx.com. ZedBoard will migrate to Production Zynq silicon when it is available. Right now we are expecting to transition some time in 1H13. As you will hopefully see, the ES silicon is very capable, and it is a great way to get a head start on your project.
Bryan
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 13 years ago

Hi,
Is there any info of what is last Zync 7020 ces supporting ISE version?
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 bhfletcher over 13 years ago

Sorry, I'm not sure that I understand your question. The Zynq 7020 CES is supported in 14.1 and 14.2. I expect that it will be supported in 14.3 and 14.4, and possibly beyond, but it is dependent on the Production schedule. At this point, all we've been told is production by the end of 2013 for the 7020, but that is subject to change.
Bryan
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to bhfletcher

OK,
I also got some info from Xilinx. Offtopic discussion at work.

What I heard was IES supports end 14.2 (last supporting verison) and GES is still supported 14.4 or later. He had info only to 14.4 at this moment.

So is it GES version that is now used in zedboard?
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 bhfletcher over 13 years ago

Yes, General ES is now being populated on ZedBoard. For that reason, anyone purchasing ZedBoard will want to be aware of the Zynq errata posted on Xilinx.com http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/zynq-7000.htm#188504
Bryan
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 12 years ago

Is Zedboard with Production Silicon available now ?
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 nwk over 12 years ago

I was interested in how much Zynq chips cost; search engine results didn't return a quick answer, so I'm posting the answer here.

While they are great chips, I'm a little surprised by how expensive they are.

The cost of the Zynq 7020 is approximately $200 in single quantities from Digikey.

You pay a premium for the high capacity parts - The larger Zynq 7045 is 7x to 12.5x the price of the Zynq 7020 parts. These prices not a departure from previous FPGA pricing trends, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

667MHz @ $196.25 unit price:
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/XC7Z020-1CLG484CES/122-1827-ND/3672244

733MHz @ $226.25 unit price (minimum order of 2):
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/XC7Z020-2CLG484CES/122-1824-ND/3672246
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 nwk over 12 years ago in reply to nwk

Just found this other thread:
http://zedboard.com/zh-hant/content/zynq-7000-series-unit-prices

Those are steep prices, because they are ES (Engineering Sample) parts that are in limited supply right now.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Former Member over 12 years ago in reply to nwk

Be aware that the price for small quantities is not representative of what folks will pay when they are in production (and in quantity).

I encourage you to work closely with your sales representative, to negotiate the best price.

Also, you should be aware that not only is this the first FPGA device + A9 processor system at 28nm, it is also the first 28nm A9 device...

I have talked to folks who need to prototype their SoC, so they bought the Zync part!
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Verify Answer

Cancel