Author Topic: Lattice Crosslink-NX and Certus-NX FPGAs  (Read 1722 times)

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Offline mark03Topic starter

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Lattice Crosslink-NX and Certus-NX FPGAs
« on: July 31, 2020, 04:14:53 pm »
I just ran across these new FPGA families and wondered if anybody here has opinions about them.  No parts available yet, but there is a Crosslink-NX dev board in stock for ~ $130.  They seem to be the first FPGAs built on an FD-SOI process (28 nm) and claim "up to 4x lower power consumption."  Their "big" part (39k logic cells, 56 DSP blocks, 2.5 Mbit RAM) is available in a 72-pin QFN, which I thought was noteworthy.  It appears comparable to some of the smaller Spartan or Artix 7's for which the easiest package option is 1-mm 196-ball BGA.  This could be really nice for applications where you don't need a lot of IO.

The "low cost" Certus-NX family is newer but appears to be the same dies.  No QFN package listed yet but I imagine it might be added later.

Documentation appears somewhat thinner than that provided by Xilinx or Intel.  No support forum (they closed it and ask you to open a support case instead :-\).  For those who have used their software (Radiant), how does it compare with something like Vivado?
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Lattice Crosslink-NX and Certus-NX FPGAs
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2020, 11:09:15 pm »
For those who have used their software (Radiant), how does it compare with something like Vivado?

I've used it with iCE40 parts.

Radiant is much, much simpler and lighter than Vivado. Typical install size ~ 3.5GB on disk. Simple workflow, basic tools. Easy to use, and fast. If you need any of the fancy features of Vivado, you'll be disappointed, but if you need something light, fast and easy to learn, it's fine. For designs on small FPGAs, you don't need anything fancier anyway IMO.
 

Offline mark03Topic starter

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Re: Lattice Crosslink-NX and Certus-NX FPGAs
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2020, 12:10:42 am »
Radiant is much, much simpler and lighter than Vivado. Typical install size ~ 3.5GB on disk.

Funny yet sad that we now live in an era where "only 3.5GB" is impressively smaller than the alternative :-DD

Does it include a logic simulator?
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Lattice Crosslink-NX and Certus-NX FPGAs
« Reply #3 on: August 01, 2020, 01:49:59 am »
Radiant is much, much simpler and lighter than Vivado. Typical install size ~ 3.5GB on disk.

Funny yet sad that we now live in an era where "only 3.5GB" is impressively smaller than the alternative :-DD

I know eh! But Vivado takes > 18GB on disk... and that's not with all parts enabled.

Does it include a logic simulator?

Yes, Radiant (as with Diamond) includes Active-HDL. And related to the above, it takes about half of the 3.5GB.
 

Offline ejeffrey

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Re: Lattice Crosslink-NX and Certus-NX FPGAs
« Reply #4 on: August 01, 2020, 05:36:37 am »
Radiant is much, much simpler and lighter than Vivado. Typical install size ~ 3.5GB on disk.

Funny yet sad that we now live in an era where "only 3.5GB" is impressively smaller than the alternative :-DD

I know eh! But Vivado takes > 18GB on disk... and that's not with all parts enabled.

I just did a nearly full install yesterday.  48 GB!
 

Offline EverydayMuffin

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Re: Lattice Crosslink-NX and Certus-NX FPGAs
« Reply #5 on: August 01, 2020, 12:08:16 pm »
Here's a white paper on the Certus-NX which I came across last month: https://www.latticesemi.com/view_document?document_id=52976

 


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