GOWIN FPGA

[ali_asadzadeh]

Hi,
I came across this Chinese FPGA manufacturer, the ARORA family seems nice

https://www.gowinsemi.com/en/product/detail/1/

So I have contacted them and they are responsive till now. I want to replace the Spartan 6 parts with these new babies!   I want to know if anybody on this forum have any experience with them, though I'm missing the floating point FFT and general floating */%+- IP cores, and I really needed them. maybe there is some solution to that. beside that any idea about this company?

[ali_asadzadeh]

Thanks, Do you have any Idea about this company?

[ebastler]

I want to replace the Spartan 6 parts with these new babies!  

Why? 

[OwO]

Why? 

The guy's in Iran, the US threats are real.

[iMo]

Looks like an advanced Lattice FPGAs. I bet there is a linkage.

Spartan6 is 6 input LUTs, so more efficient with resources and faster.

Important is how their GoWin EDA tools work..

[ali_asadzadeh]

Why? 

They are about 5 times cheaper!

The guy's in Iran, the US threats are real.

Do not believe in media! I can get access to all the parts very easily and even cheaper than US and Europe people, because of my Chinese friends

Looks like an advanced Lattice FPGAs. I bet there is a linkage.

Spartan6 is 6 input LUTs, so more effective with resources and faster.

Important is how their GoWin EDA tools work..

I should evaluate them soon. the good point about them is the 20K LE and internal SDRAM and a bonus is the LQFP and QFN package!

[iMo]

Lattice ECP5 similarity is claimed, yosys support in elaboration..

https://twitter.com/dhdezr73/status/1093336976399441920

[iMo]

GOWIN EDA - almost identical look and feel with Lattice tools like IceCube2, Radiant.
Simple IDE with basic editor and project manager.
Synplify Pro is used for the synthesis.
Tried with an existing design and got similar resources used as with an ICE40LP.
Nice!

[Berni]

So how easy is it to buy these chips? And how is the part availability for small quantities in the long run?

[iMo]

They opened the European office (in UK..) 6 months back, so hopefully they will start selling soon 

[iMo]

Programmer HW: the FT232H (single channel version of the FT2232) has been recognized by the programming sw as a "GOWIN USB CABLE (FT2CH)".
Thus the programing hw in the original box is FT2232 based.
Now, we need the chips

[ali_asadzadeh]

Programmer HW: the FT232H (single channel version of the FT2232) has been recognized by the programming sw as a "GOWIN USB CABLE (FT2CH)".
Thus the programing hw in the original box is FT2232 based.
Now, we need the chips

That's very good news. I have the digilnet adapter for xilinx, so it can be used in both places.

[technix]

Programmer HW: the FT232H (single channel version of the FT2232) has been recognized by the programming sw as a "GOWIN USB CABLE (FT2CH)".
Thus the programing hw in the original box is FT2232 based.
Now, we need the chips

I think LCSC carry them.

[ale500]

Gowin's flash-based fpgas offer embedded PeudoSRAM. And they have so many package options !
One has to register to get any datasheets, though.

[ali_asadzadeh]

I think with their strategy and hobby friendly packages and huge price difference like 10X lower in price, they would soon get a good total share of the market!

[ali_asadzadeh]

Cheap??? Their GW1N products are generally 2x the price (LCSC vs Lattice online store) than comparable iCE40 chips.

And their CSBGA packages are also available from Lattice, so nothing more competitive.

forget about their LITTLEBEE  family,Check their ARORA family, their GW2A-18 is 5USD, it's equivalent to  XC6SLX25 part which is around 35USD and this puppy cost 5USD

[nereye]

There is an interesting claim/rumor on this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/FPGA/comments/990nl9/has_anyone_had_any_experience_with_gowin_fpgas/.

[OwO]

I looked into it more and it seems all their executives have worked for lattice before, so likely also a large chunk of their employees too. If I had to guess they probably license everything from lattice.

[ali_asadzadeh]

As long as they sell cheaper, it worth it! it dose not matter where they came from, I ordered some samples from them, I think I would get my hands on them not long from now
Also if they steal some tech from lattice, it shows that lattice either did not pay their employee what they needed or satisfy them, or they are very weak as protecting their tech, either way it's their fault!

But maybe they have done something by themselves! they have internal SDRAM and I do not see any lattice part with internal SDRAM, and that's interesting for me, having the SDRAM inside the chip and save some space

[FrankBuss]

FYI, Trenz has two GOWIN boards on their website.

Trenz is a UK FPGA board mfg, covering all FPGA brands that sell to the public (sorry, no QuickLogic).

The headquarter of Trenz is in Germany.

I bought this product for testing:

https://shop.trenz-electronic.de/en/TEC0117-01-FPGA-Module-with-GOWIN-LittleBee-and-8-MByte-internal-SDRAM

The YunYuan IDE works, did a simple project, but without using the SDRAM so far. It is not the fastest, fmax for my design was about 70 MHz for a RS232 receiver and FIFO with BRAM, and sigma delta audio output from the BRAM. Testing the SDRAM will be my next step.

Before this I tried to contact Gowin for the price of their chips, because I couldn't get them in any shop. They forwarded my request to a distributor, who wants to sell minimum 200 pieces. But meanwhile lcsc.com has them in stock, at least a few types. I asked for a part with integrated PSRAM instead of the standard version with SDRAM, but looks like there are only some engineering samples of it, at least when I asked a few months ago, and I couldn't get it from them. Maybe if a big company asks them, they will produce it, but might be better not to bet on it and use the parts with SDRAM, if you need it.

Price is about the same for similar Lattice parts with external SDRAM, but the integrated SDRAM of the Gowin parts will simplify board design a lot.

[Berni]

Oh nice, thanks for the info.

Oh and did you get any ballpark prices for those 200 quantities?

[ali_asadzadeh]

Thanks for sharing, I got price info for them it's 5USD for the TQFP144 pin version without SDRAM and around 6.5 USD for the version with Internal SDRAM.

[iMo]

FYI, Trenz has two GOWIN boards on their website.

Trenz is a UK FPGA board mfg, covering all FPGA brands that sell to the public (sorry, no QuickLogic).

..The YunYuan IDE works, did a simple project, but without using the SDRAM so far. It is not the fastest, fmax for my design was about 70 MHz for a RS232 receiver and FIFO with BRAM, and sigma delta audio output from the BRAM. Testing the SDRAM will be my next step.
..

The picorv32 example did 65MHz max on the Arora, as I can remember, my conservative guess would be 45MHz with the sdram or maybe 50MHz with psram (pseudosram -> a dram with sram interface) when talking a 32bit MCU on the chip. Their current technology is 55nm, I bet they will go to an finer node soon or later (they are a fabless company)..
Interesting chips are the LittleBees in the "UV" version - single voltage, and nonvolatile configuration on-chip flash (no external bitstream flash is needed). Are they available??

[FrankBuss]

The price was $8.28 for 200 of the GW1NR-UV4QN88P part. And the distributor said he did me a favor, because even 200 pieces would be normally below minimum order quantity. I guess they are used to sell it to Chinese companies with probably more than a million pieces per product.

[ebastler]

Thanks for sharing, I got price info for them it's 5USD for the TQFP144 pin version without SDRAM and around 6.5 USD for the version with Internal SDRAM.

Based on what quantity? Tx!