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Choosing an Programmable Device

Former Member

I have used plenty of different progdevs (Programmable Devices!) in my time as an engineer, and I freely admit that there have only been a very few occasions when the architecture of any particular device has had any influence on my choice of supplier.

I usually look at cost, and the quality of technical support that I'm going to get. I've never had an issue fitting any particular feature into any device I have chosen.

 

Looking at the Farnell website while reviewing the beta forums I was struck by just how many progdevs there are available and began to wonder if any of these devices where more suited to certain applications than others.

 

I'd be interested to know if anybody has made a device choice because of a specific FPGA/CPLD feature not available elsewhere or not done as well.

Hopefully we can then build a sort of forum chart that will help designers in the choosing a progdev for their given application.

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    Coolrunner devices (was Philips at the time now Xilinx), was the lowest power CPLD at the time due to the way the pterms wer done and some tricks on the clocks.  Not sure if it still is though?

     

    Edit : Virtex4/5 due to the hard core trimode Ethernet MAC.

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    Actel like to position themselves as the low power solution

    Xilinx, with the Virtex family go for the high end speed

    Altera like a balance of speed vs power vs price

    Lattice go for NV memory

     

    I think thats a rough and ready generalization of the major companies

     

    I was at the launch of the Virtex 5 and Stratix 4 families in my last job and both Altera and Xilinx were trying to position the families towards femtocell type applications. Maybe just because they see that as the fastest growing market