Lattice Dev boards more than double the price since 2019?!

[Dmeads]

Yes i know coronavirus has made everything more expensive, but I bought an iCEstick for $20 bucks in 2019 on digikey, and now its listed for $50!!!

The intel boards seem to have gone up a few dollars too, which makes sense, but over a 100% price increase for lattice boards?

I work in construction machinery and tool retail and NOTHING we sell has seen over a 20% increase, even considering most of the manufactures switched part of their factories to make masks and ventilators and stuff.

What is going on with the lattice market? Their stock price (LSCC) is on a rise but its not looking crazy high.

thoughts??

[SiliconWizard]

I don't know really. You should ask Lattice, that could be interesting (if you get any answer).

The price you saw is the official price from Lattice actually (so it's not Digikey's decision): https://www.latticestore.com/searchresults/tabid/463/searchid/1/searchvalue/ice40hx1k-stick-evn/default.aspx
I don't know how much it was before (never bought one), but I'll have to take your word for it.

But, I DO know about MachXO2/3 dev boards as I've bought quite a few. And this looks like a general trend at Lattice: https://www.latticestore.com/products/tabid/417/categoryid/503/productid/269/searchid/1/searchvalue/lcmxo2-7000he-b-evn/default.aspx
So the MachXO2 breakout board, with a 7000HE (exact same) used to be about $25-$30, it's now $90!!! So basically the original price times 3. This is crazy.

I would definitely like to know what happened.

[Dmeads]

ya okay I will contact lattice and see if they reply.

[Cerebus]

But, I DO know about MachXO2/3 dev boards as I've bought quite a few. And this looks like a general trend at Lattice: https://www.latticestore.com/products/tabid/417/categoryid/503/productid/269/searchid/1/searchvalue/lcmxo2-7000he-b-evn/default.aspx
So the MachXO2 breakout board, with a 7000HE (exact same) used to be about $25-$30, it's now $90!!! So basically the original price times 3. This is crazy.

I bought one of those back in February at the old price from Digikey and I remember noting at the time how cheap it was. The board was less than the cost of the main chips on it at low quantity prices (including non-Lattice parts, so not something Lattice can just take off the end of the production line but actually have to pay for).  Interestingly the design of that board was not actually a Lattice original but was designed by a third party. Grabs the board to check - yeah, Axelsys. Don't know what the deal was there, but I suspect some royalties at least had to change hands, further fuelling the suspicion that the board was sold for below true cost.

I guess that the old price was heavily subsidised and they've just decided to stop doing that. It would be be interesting to see whether they've only done this to older parts but are still putting out dev boards for relatively new parts at bargain basement prices.

[mon2]

Yup. Agree that their kit prices have increased. We are suckers for almost any kit that is released and always felt that low cost, affordable tools will grow their market potential. Just look @ ST as an example.

Curious on your target FPGA and its use. We are about to release our ICE40UL1K on a PDIP PCBA and its programmer soon through crowd funding.

The ICE40UL1K PCBA is expected to be $9.95 USD in single qty.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/fpga/boot-ice40ul1k-from-nvcm/

This is our independently developed version (ICEPIK) of the project started by Antti Lukats (DIPSY).

On alternative low cost FPGA devices - have you checked GoWin Semiconductor? Efinix FPGA? They have some nice devices and very similar in toolchain operation to Lattice.

[Dmeads]

We are about to release our ICE40UL1K on a PDIP PCBA and its programmer soon through crowd funding.

Very cool. Are they available for pre-order? could you message me with some more details? would love to pick one up.

Im curious about the actual FPGA on it, did you see a price increase in the FPGA itself since 2019? Im just trying to figure out if the price increase is on the dev boards only or all lattice parts. I havent bought standalone FPGAs before from lattice so I dont have anything to compare to.

[Nominal Animal]

I've been looking at Olimex iCE40 boards, as I haven't done any FPGA stuff yet, but it looks very interesting, especially the iCE40HX8K-EVB for 26€ as of 2020-10-12.  I especially like them being open source hardware... If there was an IO module with DP/DVI/HDMI (that is, a HDCP transmitter) instead of VGA output, I'd have gotten one already.  You do need a separate 3.3V microcontroller to use as a programmer, though.

[SiliconWizard]

But, I DO know about MachXO2/3 dev boards as I've bought quite a few. And this looks like a general trend at Lattice: https://www.latticestore.com/products/tabid/417/categoryid/503/productid/269/searchid/1/searchvalue/lcmxo2-7000he-b-evn/default.aspx
So the MachXO2 breakout board, with a 7000HE (exact same) used to be about $25-$30, it's now $90!!! So basically the original price times 3. This is crazy.

I bought one of those back in February at the old price from Digikey and I remember noting at the time how cheap it was. The board was less than the cost of the main chips on it at low quantity prices (including non-Lattice parts, so not something Lattice can just take off the end of the production line but actually have to pay for).  Interestingly the design of that board was not actually a Lattice original but was designed by a third party. Grabs the board to check - yeah, Axelsys. Don't know what the deal was there, but I suspect some royalties at least had to change hands, further fuelling the suspicion that the board was sold for below true cost.

I guess that the old price was heavily subsidised and they've just decided to stop doing that. It would be be interesting to see whether they've only done this to older parts but are still putting out dev boards for relatively new parts at bargain basement prices.

Possibly so. I can just tell you that those boards had been at that low price for YEARS. My first MachXO2 breakout board I bought 6 or 7 years ago, and they were at around $25 or so.
As to cost - the boards actually embed parts for probably just a few bucks. Do not consider prices per 1 obviously. The FPGAs themselves being their own, they probably don't "cost" them that much, and then there is a FTDI part - a couple bucks at large quantities. My estimate is Lattice probably didn't make any money off those boards, but they were probably breaking even. Seems definitely doable by large quantities. As to Axelsys, the design dates back from years ago really (and the boards are really simple too) so they have probably largely amortized it. $90 OTOH is shockingly expensive for what they are.

I doubt it's just a cost question, unless Lattice is having big financial troubles... The price tag of dev. boards is usually set from other considerations IMO, such as the customers they target. Low-cost dev boards attract hobbyists and ultra-small businesses. Maybe Lattice isn't interested in dealing with that anymore. Just a thought. I'd be interested in knowing the real rationale, if anyone from Lattice ever reads this thread - or if the OP gets a direct answer - I'd like to know.

[Cerebus]

Don't forget to add physical distribution and logistics costs, and a margin for the disties/resellers who are actually parcelling them out to buyers. The old $25 retail price looks close to or a bit below actual cost to me on that basis, assuming that the BOM, assembly and testing puts it at something like the $10 mark. The jump to ~$90 is clearly a big shift in tactics.

[mon2]

We are about to release our ICE40UL1K on a PDIP PCBA and its programmer soon through crowd funding.

Very cool. Are they available for pre-order? could you message me with some more details? would love to pick one up.

Im curious about the actual FPGA on it, did you see a price increase in the FPGA itself since 2019? Im just trying to figure out if the price increase is on the dev boards only or all lattice parts. I havent bought standalone FPGAs before from lattice so I dont have anything to compare to.

@Dmeads, yes we can support this. This project has been in development for almost a year - very sad to say due to the extreme small dimensions of the FPGA onboard.

This PCBA is the size of a 8 pin PDIP device and houses the 16 ball WLCSP package, ICE40UL1K from Lattice Semiconductor. As noted, it is the born again DIPSY board which Antti Lukats had started a few years ago.

We have gone through numerous hurdles on the PCB layouts and the required assembly equipment to build with this very tiny package. The actual ICE40UL1K device is 1.4*1.4mm and has 16 pins under this bga package. We wanted to bring out a friendly version of the circuit board and the ICEPIK is this solution.

To use, simply apply 3v3 source and ground and start using inside your standard dip footprint PCB. You can test and/or program the NVCM (one time programmable memory) using our ICETRAY programming jig. Pictures (not professional) are attached.

This week, we will expand the announcement with higher quality pictures of the ICEPIK and ICETRAY along with raise the awareness on our company website. With  some interest, we wish to expand to do the same for additional devices from Lattice, GoWin and others.

The most expensive component onboard is the FTDI USB to SPI bridge. However, a strong believer that compatibility is a must. Can sleep at night knowing that the ICETRAY is fully compatible with the Lattice Diamond / ICECUBE2 toolchain and should be the same with the Linux open-source variations. The FTDI controller features the MPSSE interface to permit the USB to SPI conversion.

We will offer sample code in Verilog to test out the tiny 8 pin assembled circuit boards - RGB led driver, pushbutton reading, tone generator with a piezo buzzer.

In the future, wish to try to push these goods through main stream distribution but for now, available through us.

We are a 35+ year old hardware design company and have developed a long list of designs for the PC industry for all the key industry players. You can check out a partial list on Amazon (under Softio & Axxon). These products are assembled in house and in Canada. Need to work on the crowd sourcing campaign but you can reach out to us to get an early start.

Kumar
kumar[at]softio[dot]com

@Dmeads, wish to ask, what would you like to do with this circuit board? Are you wanting to learn about verilog and FPGA use in general? The ICE40UL1K is GPIO limited but with some creativity, can be made to do a lot. Lattice noted that they are shipping millions of these devices (WLCSP 16 ball ICE40UL1K) per DAY (yes, per DAY!!).

It is an affordable FPGA to start your experiments.

[Nominal Animal]

The actual ICE40UL1K device is 1.4*1.4mm and has 16 pins under this bga package.

That is crazy!

Just out of interest, how does that part even stick to the board?  I mean, there isn't enough surface area for solder or glue to matter much..  I'm imagining one would have to dunk it under epoxy or something, or sausage-fingered hobbyists like me might just accidentally brush it off the board without noticing!

[ale500]

There was an offer a couple months ago for the MachXO3D Breakout board for 10 $. You could get it via mouser, I got 2. The connectors are compatible to those of the MachXO3LF breakout board, which costs like 25 $ or so. You had to sign a paper to get it shipped as it has some cryptographic blocks inside. It costs 53 € now...

[MadTux]

Marketing/business admin guys at Lattice are real pricks, switch over to Xilinx/AMD or Altera/Intel and use their devices if you can. At least Lattice is dead for me, won't buy their stuff.

Just look of what they've done to ISPLever classic. Instead of making old software free to use, so that people can maintain their old designs and hobby guys can use old devboards and reclaimed devices, they now want $600/year for old crap software that doesn't even run natively on Linux.

[SiliconWizard]

Still would be interested in getting an answer from Lattice directly - we are just guessing here.

Now if the trend goes on, that might be a preliminary hint that something is going to happen. I'm wildly guessing here... Is Lattice going to be bought out in the coming months?
Might not be the case, but I'll certainly keep an eye on that.

[Cerebus]

I'm wildly guessing here... Is Lattice going to be bought out in the coming months?
Might not be the case, but I'll certainly keep an eye on that.

There have been noises made that AMD or Nvidia are sniffing around.

[woofy]

Hopefully, I will also have a lattice 1k module available soon. Its a 16 pin PDIP with 13 FPGA pins from the LP1K brought out. There's onboard flash and a CPU to handle uploading of bit streams. It might cost a little more than Kumar's board but not too much more.