George Mason University ECE 448 – FPGA and ASIC Design with VHDL

FPGAs – Survey of the Market

ECE 448Lecture 17

2 ECE 448 – FPGA and ASIC Design with VHDL

Resources

Xcell Journalavailable for FREE on line or in the printed form @http://www.xilinx.com/publications/xcellonline/

FPGA and Structured ASIC Journalavailable for FREE by e-mail or on the web @http://www.fpgajournal.com/

3 ECE 448 – FPGA and ASIC Design with VHDL

FPGAs – State of the Market

4 ECE 448 – FPGA and ASIC Design with VHDL

Major FPGA vendors

SRAM-based FPGAsXilinx Inc. – www.xilinx.comAltera Corp. – www.altera.comAtmel Corp. – www.atmel.comLattice Semiconductor Corp.

– www.latticesemi.com

Antifuse and flash-based FPGAsActel Corp. – www.actel.comQuickLogic Corp. – www.quicklogic.com

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The Programmable MarketplaceThe Programmable MarketplaceQ1 Calendar Year 2005

Source: Company reportsLatest information available; computed on a 4-quarter rolling basis

XilinxAltera

LatticeActel QuickLogic: 2% Xilinx

All Others

Two dominant suppliers, indicating a maturing market

PLD Segment FPGA Sub-Segment

Other: 2%

51%33%

5% 7%

Altera

58%

31% 11%

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PLD Market SharePLD Market Share

Source: Gartner Dataquest

$2.3B$2.6B$4.1B$2.6B$2.1B $2.6B $3.1B

31% 33% 34% 32% 31% 32% 32%

39%32% 28% 24% 20% 18% 17%

49% 50%44%38%

35%30%

51%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Calendar year 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Mar

ket S

hare

(%)

Xilinx Altera All Others

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A Maturing MarketA Maturing Market

• Dominated by two players, Xilinx and Altera• With 51% and 32% share = 83% combined

• Remaining players scramble for niches• All non-dedicated players have given up:

• Intel, T.I., Motorola, NSC, AMD, Cypress, Philips… • Late-comers have been absorbed or failed:

• Dynachip, PlusLogic, Triscend, SiliconSpice (absorbed) Chameleon, Quicksilver, Morphics, Adaptive Silicon (failed)

The pace of innovation is set by the leaders

8 ECE 448 – FPGA and ASIC Design with VHDL

Mainstream RequirementsMainstream Requirements• Versatility, high performance, and low cost• Popular sub-functions @ ASIC performance and

cost• User-friendly and capable tools• Many available cores, helpful tech support• Easy (partial) re-programmability• Signal integrity on the pc-board• Compatible I/O levels and standards• Many size, speed, temp and package options• Small-quantity part availability for fast prototyping

9 ECE 448 – FPGA and ASIC Design with VHDL

FPGA families

Spartan 3 Virtex 4 LX / SX / FXSpartan 3E Virtex 5 LX/LXT/SXT/FXT

Spartan 3ASpartan 3ANSpartan 3A DSP

Low-cost High-performance

Xilinx

Altera Cyclone II Stratix II Cyclone III Stratix II GX

Stratix III

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Xilinx FPGA Families• Old families

• XC3000, XC4000, XC5200• Old 0.5µm, 0.35µm and 0.25µm technology. Not

recommended for modern designs.• Low Cost Family

• Spartan/XL – derived from XC4000• Spartan-II – derived from Virtex• Spartan-IIE – derived from Virtex-E• Spartan-3, Spartan-3E, Spartan-3A• Spartan-3AN, Spartan-3A DSP (90 nm)

• High-performance families• Virtex (220 nm)• Virtex-E, Virtex-EM (180 nm)• Virtex-II, Virtex-II PRO (130 nm)• Virtex-4 (90 nm)• Virtex-5 (65 nm)

Source: [Xilinx Inc.]

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Virtex 4

Source: [Xilinx, Inc.]

12 ECE 448 – FPGA and ASIC Design with VHDL

Three Virtex-4 FamiliesThree Virtex-4 Families

• Application-Specific Modular Block Architecturemakes it easier to create sub-families• LX has logic, BlockRAMs, DSP-Blocks, I/O• SX has more DSP Blocks and BlockRAMs,

less logic• FX adds powerful system features:

• PPC, Ethernet controller, 11 Gbps transceivers

Virtex-4 = eight ‘LX, three ‘SX, six ‘FX circuits17 family members available in 2005

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Covering a Wide RangeCovering a Wide RangeTh

roug

hput

Arithmetic Performance

FX

LXSX

Network Processing Supercomputing

Scientific Processing

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Prices of the most recent families of Xilinx FPGAs

Spartan 3 Virtex II, Virtex II-Pro

< $130* < $3,000*

Spartan 3E Virtex 4 < $35* < $3,000*

* approximate cost of the largest device per unit for a batch of 10,000 units

Low-cost High-performance

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Virtex-5 Product Roadmap

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WHAT’S NEW IN THE VIRTEX-5 FPGA FAMILY

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4-bit LUTs vs. 6-bit LUTs

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Hard IP Blocks in Virtex 5

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Virtex-5 vs. Virtex-4 Performance