Spartan-3 Family dead in 2021? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: soFPG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2021, 09:33:42 am
content: It seems like the download link to the ISE Design Suite at the Spartan-3 page leads to something different.Does this mean Spartan-3 FPGAs are dead in 2021?

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2021, 09:51:12 am
content: Not sure what page are you talking about, and how come that a broken link would mean Spartan 3 family "dead".Anyway, this is the Xiling ISE download page. All the versions seems to be there, Google knows them.https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/vivado-design-tools/archive-ise.html

author: woofy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2021, 10:52:40 am
content: No, not dead. Just check the Mouser catalogue for Spartan3. Many devices have ongoing delivery schedules.For anyone with product based on Spartan3, ongoing stock can still be purchased. I wouldn't advise them for new designs, Spartan3 came out at least 15 years ago.Hobby projects are fine though, especially if you have some devices laying around you want to use.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2021, 03:43:50 pm
content: Last ISE (14.7) supports the 3 family and is still available. If it weren't, it would mean that then 6 series would also be "dead", as ISE is the only way of dealing with it. Which is far from being true.As woofy said, I would also suggest switching to a newer family for new designs, but I suspect ISE will still be usable in many years from now. If you're on Windows 10, though, you will need to use a virtual machine - I think Xilinx provides a ready-to-use install for Windows 10 using a VM. Or, you can use ISE on Linux.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 02:40:34 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on April 23, 2021, 03:43:50 pmI don't think Xilinx has ever produced a 7-series chip with QFP or QFN package. So for DIYers losing ISE 14.7 pretty means kissing goodbye to Xilinx platform entirely unless one can do BGA.Also, AFAIK, ISE 14.7 works flawlessly under a32-bitinstallation of Windows 10. I would hope Xilinx provide a way to force install a 32-bit version of ISE under a 64-bit version of Windows, which will likely workaround all those compatibility issues.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 05:40:58 pm
content: Quote from: technix on April 28, 2021, 02:40:34 amI dunno, I haven't looked into what the compatibility issues actually are, so I'm just saying what Xilinx supports: a VM for ISE 14.7 on Windows 10.It may work with the 32-bit version though, have never tried. Likewise, Vivado has stopped being supported on Windows 7 starting with the 2020.1 version, but 2020.1 actually works fine on Win 7. Vivado 2020.2 does NOT work on Win 7 though, and I've found out why. Some of the new executables are linked against newer versions of system DLLs, and require functions from the Windows API that are only available starting with windows 8 (or 8.1, I don't remember exactly...) Meaning that so far, you should be able to run 2020.2 on Windows 8. But on 7, it's definitely a dead cause now. Last working version is 2020.1 (tested.) I even checked whether the command-line tools would still be working (I could actually live without the IDE for most things...), but they also require newer functions from the Windows API, so that's a no.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 05:41:58 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on April 28, 2021, 05:40:58 pmI have a 32-bit-only Windows 10 tablet, and ISE works perfectly on that (albeit slowly.)