FPGA: what is your favourite manufacturer ?

Thread Starter

simozz

Joined Jul 23, 2017
125
Hi,

I am actually professionally working with Zynq series FPGA from Xilinx, but I would like to know opinions about other manufacturers.

I used Quartus a couple of times for small tests on Cyclone FPGA, so I cannot judge their tools a lot, but of course I know that Intel Cyclone has an arquitecture similar to Zynq.

I know that Lattice manufactures FPGAs as well but never used them.

What is your experience and satisfaction with FPGAs and development tools other than Xilinx ?

Thanks.
s.
 
Last edited:

AnalogKid

Joined Aug 1, 2013
10,971
Long time Lattice fan from back in the CPLD days. I've used Altera (pre-Intel) and Xilinx, but when I get to choose, I choose Lattice.

ak
 

Deleted member 115935

Joined Dec 31, 1969
0
Hi,

I am actually professionally working with Zynq series FPGA from Xilinx, but I would like to know opinions about other manufacturers.

I used Quartus a couple of times for small tests on Cyclone FPGA, so I cannot judge their tools a lot, but of course I know that Intel Cyclone has an arquitecture similar to Zynq.

I know that Lattice manufactures FPGAs as well but never used them.

What is your experience and satisfaction with FPGAs and development tools other than Xilinx ?

Thanks.
s.
Lattice, lovely parts, but very dis jointed tools . Primeraly due to most of the parts being results of taking over over companies and their tools . Parts are also "special" in that different families suit different types of jobs, more so than the other companies.

Xilinx, Great FPGAs , provided you are using more recent FPGAs tools OK, . The old tools were fantastic for the FPGAs they supported, but Xilinx has dropped the old tools, and no longer work on W10. The CPLDs are great, but the CPLD tools are part of the none supported EOL line,
Xilinx have also dropped support for VHDL. Its just hanging on,

Intel. Used to have great FPGAs under Altera, better than Xilinx, but they seem to have lost their way in recent years. Trying to tie FPGAs into Xeon chips.
They also have the old Acronix , which is the asynchronous FPGA company that they cant seem to make mind up on.
IP cores all seem to cost money from intel, where as other companies have much larger free / built in range of IP.
But the Intel IP does seem to be better.

MicroChip, The old Atmel, a very dis jointed set of chips and programs to use them, I seem to remember their Igloo range is the old Phillips semi range.. Ive not much experiance with theses,
 

tribbles

Joined Jun 19, 2015
31
Xilinx, Great FPGAs , provided you are using more recent FPGAs tools OK, . The old tools were fantastic for the FPGAs they supported, but Xilinx has dropped the old tools, and no longer work on W10.
As in the WebPack ISE? That can be made to work on W10 - you just need to replace a DLL and it works fine. Been using it on W10 for a while.

As you can guess, my favourite is Xilinx - although I have used Lattice in the dim and distant past (had a mate who was a salesman for a distributor, so got free parts from time to time).

I do keep an eye on the others, but I've not had anything that has meant I've moved from Xilinx.
 

Deleted member 115935

Joined Dec 31, 1969
0
ISE on W10,
your a brave person,

Your just waiting for the next windows update to kill another feature

best of luck keeping that going,
 

Deleted member 115935

Joined Dec 31, 1969
0
until the one it does not,
it seems to be also down to what processor / mother board you have
I have seen lots of peoples ISE system stop working after a W10 update,
just do a search online,
Your living on the edge, if your happy with that, then thats fine,
But , please don't suggest ISE direct on W10 to any one else with out the warning that its not supported,
 

Deleted member 115935

Joined Dec 31, 1969
0
what are these like compared to programing Arduino , so STM MCU?
An Arduino Question in the FPGA forums,,,,

Not certain what comparison between the tools there can be,

I certainly can't use old versions of arduino tools on new OS's,
but luckily the arduino tools are compatible with each other,
 
Hi,

I am actually professionally working with Zynq series FPGA from Xilinx, but I would like to know opinions about other manufacturers.

I used Quartus a couple of times for small tests on Cyclone FPGA, so I cannot judge their tools a lot, but of course I know that Intel Cyclone has an arquitecture similar to Zynq.

I know that Lattice manufactures FPGAs as well but never used them.

What is your experience and satisfaction with FPGAs and development tools other than Xilinx ?

Thanks.
s.
In the beginning, just after "PAL"s, there was Altera and Xilinx. Xilinx tools were totally open-ended needing DOS prompts. Altera offered a complete package that worked. Over the years, Altera and Xilinx leapfrog each other. Today I would say they are about equal both in FPGA and CPLD. (After 25 years) Lattice had a great internal logic set based on XORbot blocks. totally outperformed the "A" and "X" parts in polynomial calculations. As I understand it, MicroSemi obtained Atmel. I did one design using the Atmel. On a scale of 1 to 10, they were a "0" Good luck with your choice. If funds allow, buy 3 or 4 demo boards, write some code in VHDL or Verilog and compare your application and tool ease of use.
 

paclogic

Joined Aug 20, 2020
11
SPLDs, PLDs, PLAs, PALs, GALs are DEAD (Monolithic Memories, Intel, ST, TI, AMD, ... many more)

CPLDs are DEAD (Atmel, AMD, Cypress, Lattice, ... many more)

FPGAs are only a few manufacturers left ;
Altera gobbled up by Intel
Xilinx gobbled up by AMD
Actel gobbled up by Microsemi
Lattice is now the low cost leader (<$1)
Quicklogic still hanging in there

http://www.interfacebus.com/Programmable_Logic.html
http://www.fpga-site.com/companies.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_logic_device

Altera used to have the best tools, Xilinx has the most powerful and versatile arrays, Actel was the Mil-Spec leader.

Many changes and SoC is the leading tech with massive MGBTs I/Os.
 

FlyingDutch

Joined Mar 16, 2021
83
Hello,

I used to use Xilinx FPGAs and software tools, just because my first FPGA board was based on Spartan3A. And my next FPGA boards (with Artix7, Spartan7,ZYNQ-7000) also had been based on Xilinx devices. This is cause why I known better Xilinx FPGAs and their software tools.
Currently Intel has comparable and even bigger devices. Intal has also CPUs connected with FPGA (Xeon series).

I used few times Intel FPGAs (Max10, Cyclone iV) and "Quartus Lite" software and I must admit that this software is good.
Last time I also used FPGAs from Chinese company "Gowin Semiconductor". They have smaller devices wirh nice cases and relatively cheap. Here is link to this company:

https://www.gowinsemi.com/en/about/detail/latest_news/57/

BTW: did You see Xilinx new SoM modules (Kria):

https://www.xilinx.com/products/som/kria/k26c-commercial.html
https://www.xilinx.com/products/som/kria.html

250$ for such advanced SoM is very interesting (IMHO).

Best Regards
 
Last edited:

bdrmachine

Joined Jan 26, 2010
20
As in the WebPack ISE? That can be made to work on W10 - you just need to replace a DLL and it works fine. Been using it on W10 for a while.

As you can guess, my favourite is Xilinx - although I have used Lattice in the dim and distant past (had a mate who was a salesman for a distributor, so got free parts from time to time).

I do keep an eye on the others, but I've not had anything that has meant I've moved from Xilinx.
As in the WebPack ISE? That can be made to work on W10 - you just need to replace a DLL and it works fine. Been using it on W10 for a while.

As you can guess, my favourite is Xilinx - although I have used Lattice in the dim and distant past (had a mate who was a salesman for a distributor, so got free parts from time to time).

I do keep an eye on the others, but I've not had anything that has meant I've moved from Xilinx.
I don't know about this living on the edge comment but, thanks for pointing out the DLL issue with webpack. I have a Spartan 6 part that isn't supported with the new software. Where did you get the DLL file?
 
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