Efinix Trion FPGA's

[nctnico]

Contact AVNET. you should be able to buy XC7A35T-1CSG325C or XC7A35T-1FT256I

Thanks. These could be a good option if my alternative plan fails. The reasons for choosen the Spartan 6 device about 4 years ago (Covid really threw a wrench in this project's progress as well) was 1) to re-use most of an existing design minimising the amount of development work. And 2) not needing part qualification testing (on which I can't eloborate further other than that it involves a crapload of work). But since everything is open, there are many more options to consider. Removing the requirement for having high speed transceivers inside the FPGA could provide a healthy cost savings and a much broader choice for FPGA devices. Another issue is that ISE 14.7 doesn't support the XC7A35T so the build system that currently is created around ISE14.7, needs to be setup again as well.

[glenenglish]

If you like ISE, suggest running Vivado in all-command line mode / TCL batch. There are lots of examples on how to do this.

If you run GUI mode, suggest do not let vivado copy files into project. (check box when adding files)

alot of people load  files, create projects all in TCL / command line, then do all their runs and post synth analysis in the GUI.

[nctnico]

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of ISE. As usual for these kinds of GUIs the editor sucks pretty bad IMHO and overall ISE feels a bit clunky. I use ISE for synthesis / P&R, checking timing errors, etc only and for some projects I'm using a 'makefile flow' to build final binaries so I know the settings are exactly what I'm expecting. For editing I'm using Eclipse with a VHDL plugin (called veditor) but it might be a good time to look at some newer VHDL plugins created for VSCode.

[glenenglish]

I use SUBLIME editor  for VHDL. and only ever use the Vivado editor for files like the constraints files and inspecting core templates

[Ling]

as AK6DN described, due to the COVID AND KIND of hard / obselete supply infos someone trying to spread on market, some big factroy over ordered what they need. so as u can see many factories are struggling hard to sell these excess, continue to sending out big lists for bidding... like I'd received a XC6SLX25-3CSG324C 9K for half month, factory willing to sell them at the price of 2020 level, asked this long period, the market only willing to bid half cost to try stock 

so maybe it's also good opportunity for u to find some suitable price & stock if ur company's buyer have good communication with big mall or kind of supplier who deal with lots of OEMs, they always have plenty of excess list can try lucky

[Rasz]

People like Spartan 6 because couple of years ago you could have picked XC6SLX25 at $5 no problem, now all of a sudden Xilinx cough AMD is not saying part is EOL but just refusing to manufacture Similar situation with Broadcom reducing VideoCore 4 supply (used in pis). Meanwhile TSMC sitting on vacant factories https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-10/tsmc-sales-miss-for-second-straight-quarter-on-tepid-tech-demand

[SiliconWizard]

The Spartan-6 was great value and very capable even compared to anything newer. Obviously things have completely been shaken ever since the shortage.

[glenenglish]

I always ran out of carry chains/routing with large bit width  filters and high utilization. didnt like 6 series.