Which ISE for AVNET Spartan 3A kit

Question

Hi!

I would like to use my old AVNET KIT, but Vivaldo is not supporting that. How to use it with WIN10, or (if not other option) with Ubuntu.

Or maybe this board has no sense in 2021 to learn and I should buy a new kit. What is your opinion?

bhfletcher · Accepted Answer

If you are just looking to learn Verilog, VHDL, or FPGA design techniques, then any tool and any board will do. However, the tools have changed pretty dramatically since Spartan-3A. If you want to take advantage of Vivado, Vitis, or any of the latest machine learning examples, then it is well worth updating your board. If you choose to update, I suggest the Ultra96-V2. We have a workshop coming up in August that would help jumpstart you.

Ultra96-V2 Workshop: Session 1: Setup with Xilinx Tools

If you decide to move forward with the Spartan-3A, then

Go to www.xilinx.com/download
Select ISE archive
Select ISE 14.7 Windows 10
Download the 15.52 GB archive, decompress, and install

Bryan

johnbeetem · Answer

For Spartan 3-A, I recommend using Xilinx ISE Webpack 12.2 or 12.4. The last time I looked (many years ago), the Xilinx web site had legacy versions of their software available for download. I think they have both Windows and GNU/Linux versions. I have found it best to use Xilinx software that was current when your FPGA family was first released. Xilinx has many parts, and it's not practical for Xilinx to test all their old parts with each new software release. So you see regression, where things that used to work don't any more. It you use the software that was current when your FPGA was released, that software was extensively tested with the new FPGA family.

Gough Lui · Answer

I suspect it is only supported by the old Xilinx (Webpack) ISE. To run that may need Windows 7 in a virtual machine as it is known to have issues with modern versions of Windows. Perhaps not worth the hassle for some, but it's probably still a decent FPGA for simple tasks.

wolfgangfriedrich · Answer

The Digilent ARTY-S7 might be something to consider. It hosts a Spartan-S7 FPGA and was roadtested (twice) here on E14. Those roadtests work very well as tutorials because people tend to write unbiased about issues and always have good examples going on.

The Spartan S7 FPGA is a much more advanced FPGA design compared to the Spartan3 series and is at least similar to the logic section of the 1st generation Zync devices.

Which ISE for AVNET Spartan 3A kit

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