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Technology Stocks : Altera -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: schlep who wrote (2039)	5/5/1999 11:37:00 AM
From: cecil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2389

Schlep, I agree with your points. I didnt want to start a debate about V300 versus 10K compile times. The 10K compile time was not my design, I have done several 10Kdesigns and had compiles ranging from 2 - 30 minutes for 10K30 to 10K50E. With any technology it is definitely design and designer dependent. I am a former Altera FAE and know all the benefits and pitfalls of the architectures and tools. The V300 design was my first experience with Xilinx and I was quite impressed. I had originally targetted an Altera 10K device, but packaging issue forced me to Xilinx. I started by targetting a 4085XLA-09 and the part would take about 24 hours to route (using multipass P&R) and barely met timing. I bit the bullet and converted to V300 last minute (needed to add 2.5V DC-DC) and was very impressed with the results compared to XLA devices. Your points about TDC are all valid. I never rely on TDC - design for speed - dont rely on tools for speed. Pipeline everything, keep logic levels down and the speed will be there. I would also agree that you can get comparable performance from 10KE-1 and V300-5. However, if you have Industrial temperature requirements - I do - Altera doesnt offer the -1, until recently the fastest speed grade was -3 (they are promising -2 now) - but the -3 speed is about 50% slower than -1. Xilinx offers V300-5 in I temp. In terms of sheer performance V300-5 versus 10KE-3, Xilinx wins. But, in terms of real designs, I've had no problem meeting performance requirements up to 50 MHz in 10K-3. I'm looking forward to using Apex devices, but really wanted to see the CAM in 20K400 - they pushed it out to the 20KE devices.