I am looking for a specific Avnet Spartan3A evaluation board part number AES-SP3A-EVAL400-G

Hello everyone,

I am looking for a specific Avnet Spartan3A evaluation board part number AES-SP3A-EVAL400-G www.nooelec.com/.../spartan3a.pdf . If anyone knows of a source where I can purchase a new or used board like this please let me know.

Best Wishes,
Cosmin

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kevinkeryk over 1 year ago +1

Hi ciorga I definitely remember this board and I have a lot of fond memories of it since I wrote some of the software that runs on it for the out-of-box demos :) I found this video of that board in action…

kevinkeryk over 1 year ago

Hi ciorga I definitely remember this board and I have a lot of fond memories of it since I wrote some of the software that runs on it for the out-of-box demos :) I found this video of that board in action and got that old nostalgia feel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTefwXzMkTw

But sadly this board is from early 2008 and that board is no longer available for purchase brand new.

I am curious what possible use you could have for this board that would not be better served by something like the Arty S7-25 board? Even the "small" Spartan-7 device on that board has (23,360) nearly 4x the logic cells that the Spartan-3A400 device (8064) on that older board had:

https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/1-ulj76y.html

Also, the only possible way that I know of is to load the old Xilinx ISE tools to be able to target new designs to the device on that board. You will not be able to use the newer Vivado Design Tools with any devices prior to the Series-7 devices.

You might be able to find one of these boards from people who have them in storage and otherwise collecting dust, but I simply cannot imagine they could be all that useful to you compared to the cool stuff you can easily get today.

Best Regards,

-Kevin
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kevinkeryk over 1 year ago in reply to kevinkeryk

Ummm… 23,360 / 8,064 = 2.897 so almost 3x not 4x. Me no maths so good tonight, but that Arty-S7 is still a very good deal!
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johnbeetem over 1 year ago

Hi!

If you are able to find this board, you'll need to use old Xilinx tools to design the logic and download it.

Xilinx has old tools available at their web site: https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/vivado-design-tools/archive-ise.html

I've had good luck with ISE 12.4 for Spartan 3A and Spartan 6.

Using the latest version of Xilinx tools has been problematic in my experience. Each new tool version is designed for a new FPGA family and is tested thoroughly for that family. However, it seems older families are not tested rigorously, and sometime the software regresses. I've had good luck using the tool version that was new when a family was introduced. Xilinx addresses the tool regression problem by providing old versions.
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Korfix over 1 year ago

Hi Ciorga

I have 10 pcs AES-SP3A-EVAL400-G boards. 7 has never been opened. You can have them very cheap if you still interested. Best Frank
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