[rescue] Bigger Iron at Home (was: SNMP, Baby!)

[Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez]

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Joshua Boyd wrote:

>
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 12:04:11AM +0200, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
>
> > I don't know much about the Spartan 3, could you elaborate?
>
> The spartan 3 is an FPGA.  I'm told that in small quantities it costs
> about $15-20.  I'm by no means an FPGA expert, but it seems to be to be a
> fairly powerfull one.  Certainly far larger than what was used for early
> macs or early risc machines, except unlike those it can easily be
> clocked much higher.

it is more like a $100.00 part, still rather remarkable low price since
the part is relatively dense. Not particularly fast (50 - 70Mhz). Also you
need to take into account that is is a BGA part, not a socketed one, so
building a design around it can be a PITA uless you know what you are
doing. At least 6 layer board, plus it has a shitload of power ground
pins. The problem is that with the new denser high speed parts, we are
moving away from the wirewrap, and home etched boards of yore.... :(

Eeerrr about the clocking, I really doubt you may get faster than 50Mhz
when synthesizing a complex processor in those FPGAs, I believe you need
Virtex parts to get in the 100 to 200Mhz range for such complex parts, and
that is with a very good placement and routing.