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Full Introduction about Xilinx spartan 3,spartan 3e and

spartan 3a
The international electronic manufacturing industry is an enormous industry worth
over $200 billion. The industry has grown at a rate of 25% annually for the last
decade and shows no signs of stopping. With such rapid growth in just a few years,
it’s not hard to see how quickly the electronic manufacturing market evolves. It
changes in response to innovations and technological advances in development. Such
is especially true in the FPGA market.

Xilinx is one of the largest FPGA manufacturers in the world, with more than 400
employees worldwide. Xilinx has been an industry leader in FPGAs since their
inception with their first FPGA, the XL-3. Since then, they have continued innovating
and developing new technologies. They help companies design their next-generation
products with high-speed processing power and low power consumption.

The last couple of years have seen Xilinx releasing new FPGA products and various
new boards for different markets led by Chinese firm RayMing PCB and Assembly.
These boards help improve the industry’s ability to operate efficiently and securely
behind closed doors, leading to safer, faster, more reliable products. Being able to use
these boards and the FPGA devices themselves will vastly increase the value of the
product design. Unfortunately, most products still end up being custom-built because
of product, process, or materials constraints.

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Table of Contents

Difference between Xilinx and Altera

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xilinx spartan 3e

Xilinx & Altera are both FPGA manufacturers, but they are very different in
architecture, FPGA families, and, most importantly, price.

Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) is an American publicly held semiconductor company

founded in 1984. Altera (NASDAQ: ALTR) is an owned Denver-based manufacturer
of programmable logic devices for FPGAs. Altera is the only semiconductor company
to be part of the NASDAQ since its inception.

Xilinx has been manufacturing FPGAs for 25 years. Altera has been manufacturing
programmable logic devices for 22 years.

Xilinx has been designing and selling FPGAs for 25 years. In those 25 years, they
have become the focal point for high-performance FPGA products used in all major
industry sectors. It includes communications, aerospace/defense, medical
devices, industrial control systems, and many more.

Altera has been designing and selling programmable logic devices for 22 years. They
have done so through their partnership with Intel, which they entered in 1991. The
first FPGA product that Altera manufactured for Intel was the “IUS.” Likewise,
Altera’s first programmable logic device was the EPM3000, which came out in 1994.

Xilinx manufactures programmable logic devices (FPGA). These devices consist

of programming blocks that we can configure to different configurations using a
computerized design tool. Once the design is ready, we can end it with a

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manufacturing process such as an automated router or panel fabrication. We can make

FPGAs with regular size integrated circuits (IC) and regular electrical components.
The advantage of using regular ICs and electrical components is that they can build
large and complex designs.

Xilinx utilizes a network (known as the Zynq system) to make programming faster
and easier.

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What is Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA?

The Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA is an integrated circuit that we can use for a variety of
purposes. The Spartan-3 FPGA consists of an Accel-FPGA device. It contains
programmable logic and embedded memory. The Virtex-E FPGA has hardwired logic
cores and memory blocks. We bring these two devices together by a PLD
(programmable logic device) controller unit.

Getting the most out of this powerful combination is possible by Xilinx with its new
vision for embedded FPGAs. The main elements of the framework are:

Xilinx continues to expand its embedded FPGA portfolio with tools that allow
software development in C/C++, including a free environment for development. The
tools are available when used with Xilinx’s programmable logic development boards,
called Embedded Development Boards.

The Spartan-3 FPGA hardware components

Accel-FPGA device

This device contains programmable specific logic, embedded memory, and an

input/output port. So, the programmable-specific logic allows for the customization of
the device we use in various applications. The embedded memory does not hold any
information about its contents or location. Instead, we control the hardware attributes
through commands sent to the device using the Accel-FPGA interface.

Xilinx Virtex-E FPGA

This device’s design is specifically for use with the Accel-FPGA. It contains
hardwired logic, embedded memory blocks, and an input/output port. The logic
implemented in the device provides maximum bandwidth and performance to external
circuitry on the board. The hardwired logic on the Virtex-E FPGA limits flexibility of

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the board. However, it provides faster performance than that of programmable logic
on the Accel-FPGA. We control some of the hardware attributes through
programmable logic on the Accel-FPGA. Also, we control them through commands
sent to the Virtex-E FPGA using the Virtex-E interface.

In addition to the above hardware components, we refer to the board design software
for this board as Code Composer Studio. This software is a tool that allows a
registered Xilinx developer to create FPGA designs and modify them through a
graphical interface, much like that of a software development kit (SDK). The software
also allows the user to build the design into a bit file and download it to the FPGA
board. Code Composer Studio uses the ISE for programming and debugging
purposes.

Xilinx also makes available a free development environment for this FPGA board.
The software, which we call the Xilinx Device Development System, provides a
C/C++ programming environment for writing FPGA designs. It also allows the user
to compile the design into a bit file downloaded to the board. The XDS is available
for download at Xilinx’s website.

The Spartan-3 FPGA Software components

Several software elements are essential for product designers who want to use this
particular FPGA board. The software components are:
1. Xilinx Cell-based Platform Development Kit (CP2K). This software tool allows the
user to create C/C++ programs compiled into bit files that we can then program into
a Xilinx FPGA device.

2. Xilinx ISE (Integrated Software Environment). Code Composer Studio includes

this software and allows users to control the hardware through a graphical interface. It
also allows the user to develop software for use with this board.

3. XILINX Virtex-E Programmer – This software allows the user to compile C/C++
code into bit files transferred to the Virtex-E FPGA.

4. Xilinx ISE Programming Model (IPM). This software tool is essential in

programming the Spartan-3 FPGA board through Code Composer Studio.

5. Xilinx Embedded Development Board Emulator. This software allows users to run
their programs on the FPGA board using an integrated MIPS processor. Again, we do
the bug fixes through an Eclipse-based C/C++ development environment.

In addition to the software components listed above, additional we use software tools
for simulation purposes. These tools include:

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6. ModelSim HDL Simulator – Mentor Graphics initially invented a simulation tool,

but Xilinx acquired it in 2001. It performs detailed simulations of the design during its
development and debugging.

7. VCS (Verification and Constraints Shaping) – This tool speeds up the constraints
debugging process.

8. CLPR (Code-Level Place and Route). This tool performs full-chip routing after
thoroughly testing and debugging the design. We may need to use it after making
changes to the design due to testing and bug fixing errors.

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Features of Spartan 3 family

xilinx spartan 3a

The Spartan-3 family supports the following features:

1. I/O Capabilities

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The Spartan-3 FPGA has an expansion port plugs in one or more boards to plug into
the expansion bus. The board connected to the expansion bus can include a processor,
memory, and other peripherals. Together, the FPGA and board connected to the
expansion bus can create a sizeable embedded system.

2. Logic Capabilities

The programmable logic of the FPGA contains resources such as memory blocks,
DSP slices, and mega-flops. A mega-flop is a unit of logic that executes one million
floating-point operations per second. We can use logic resources in FPGAs with
multiple different combinations to fulfill different design needs.

3. Reduced pin count

We integrate the Spartan-3 family with many minimally-sized resources that reduce
the pin counts on the design. For example, Xilinx has combined the DSP slices,
memory blocks, resources for mega-flops with the programmable logic resources.
The Spartan-3 family provides a 28 nm DSP block to implement highly efficient DSP
algorithms.

4. Memory

The Spartan-3 family supports a RAM module that we can use to store a random
access memory (RAM) block from Xilinx’s Offcore Memory Library. We place the
RAM block between the processor and SRAM blocks of the computation region of
the FPGA device. As a result, we configure the RAM block as a memory block that
provides an additional storage area and additional random access memory to the
components of the embedded system.

5. Low power consumption

The Spartan-3 family consumes less power than other FPGA families. For example,
the device consumes less than 1 W of power when executing a 1 MHz operating point
(BOD level). With heavy use, such as during simulation, the device still requires less
than 0.5 W of power.

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6. High Throughput and Large Capacity Memory Blocks

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The Spartan-3 family supports a large RAM block that can store data, such as 1 GB of
data, for storing large amounts of data during FPGA simulation. We can detach the
RAM block from the main computation region to access and debug the memory block
easily. We can configure the relative size of the RAM block using a configuration
block at index 8 in the configuration file.

7. Optimized Logic Design

The logic of the Spartan-3 family has an optimization using Xilinx’s tools. This
reduces the amount of logic needed to perform a specific task.

8. Fast Boot-Time

The Spartan-3 family has a fast boot time because it has an internal configuration
memory loaded by the circuit board at the start-up. This speeds up the configurations
process to allow users to start using their designs quickly.

9. Reduction of Existing Design Iterations

The Spartan-3 family can reduce existing design iterations due to design predictability.
This happens because the device uses FPGA functionality rather than general-purpose
logic elements. Reducing the number of iterations required to implement new designs
reduces the time needed to re-design a design.

10. Support for a Variety of Applications

The Spartan-3 family supports various applications from low-frequency

communication blocks. For instance, those used in modems to high-performance
communication blocks in radios and communication equipment. In addition, the
devices support low-frequency control functions. For example, those used in central
processing units (CPUs), digital signal processing (DSP), high-frequency fixed-point
DSPs, and floating-point DSPs.

Advantages of the Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA Boards

The following are some of the areas of application for the Spartan-3 FPGA boards:

1. Low cost

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The Spartan-3 family is inexpensive because it uses standard FPGA resources

to reduce costs. By incorporating the DSP slices, memory blocks, resources for
mega-flops with the programmable logic resources, the Spartan-3 family provides a
28 nm DSP block to implement highly efficient DSP algorithms.

2. The design is highly predictable

The Spartan-3 family reduces the number of iterations required to re-design a design
by having the FPGA functionality rather than general-purpose logic elements, such as
gate arrays and flip-flops. This reduces the time needed for re-designing a design and
allows designers to continue to use their existing designs.

3. Support for a variety of applications

The Spartan-3 family supports various applications. For example, low-frequency

communication blocks used in modems to high-performance communication blocks
in radios and communication equipment. In addition, the devices support
low-frequency control functions. For example, those used in central processing units
(CPUs), digital signal processing (DSP), high-frequency fixed-point DSPs, and
floating-point DSPs.

4. The design is highly optimized

The logic design of the Spartan-3 family is highly optimized, and we can implement
and test in a matter of minutes. This allows the Spartan-3 family to work as a quick
“turnaround” for new designs or an efficient testbed for existing designs.

5. Simplicity of design

With the inclusion of memory interfaces and RAM blocks, the Spartan-3 family
provides device-level device configuration flexibility to designers allowing them to
save re-designs and reduce their timeframe to bring new designs to market.

6. The design is highly flexible

The Xilinx Foundation Packages on the Spartan-3 family are essential for various
applications, such as communication and computing equipment. In addition, the
Foundation Packages support a variety of protocols and provide a collection of
building block components to simplify the implementation process for designers.

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7. The devices are available in different package styles

There are a variety of package styles to support different types of customers or

application requirements. These package styles include:

a) We can use the XC3S500E and XC3S1000E devices by designers who require a
low-cost device with low power requirements.

b) The XC3S1500E and the XC3S2000E devices incorporate 1 MB of onboard

memory. Therefore, we can use them for applications, such as communication
equipment.

8. We can program the in different styles

This allows the designers to select the style that best suits their needs. These
programming styles include:

a) The Classic Programmer is available for programmers who want to program the
device using the classic EDA flow.

b) The Black Box Programmer is available for programmers who use an engineering
tool with an integrated design environment (IDE). We can use this integrated design
environment (IDE) for program development.

9. The devices have onboard memory

The devices have onboard memory to allow users faster design development. The
onboard memory allows designers to use standard development tools for device
configuration and verification, such as the Xilinx ISE tools. The XC3S1500E and
XC3S2000E devices also include 1 MB of onboard memory, storing data used during
the simulation process.

10. The devices provide the ability to reconfigure dynamically

The devices provide the ability to reconfigure during design development dynamically.
This allows designers to create new algorithms and algorithms as they implement new
designs.

11. The devices support a wide range of standards

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This includes standards such as:

a) IEEE Standard 1149.1, which provides for interfacing with microprocessors and
microcontrollers;

b) IEEE Standard 1149.4, which provides for interfacing with memory devices;

c) IEEE Standard 754, which provides for the representation of floating-point

numbers; and

d) IEEE Standard 1532, which provides a platform for testing programmable logic
devices.

Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA Boards limitations

1. Xilinx Foundation Packages are missing

The Xilinx Foundation Packages are not part of the Spartan-3 family. Unfortunately,
this means that designers will have to purchase or use an existing Foundation
Package.

2. The devices are not pinned compatible with the previous generation

Although the devices are pin-compatible, they represent a significant change in

functionality and performance compared to previous devices. Because of this, the
Xilinx Foundation Packages developed in the prior generation devices will not work
on the Spartan-3 family.

3. The devices have a limited number of user I/Os

These devices have a limited number of user I/Os because of the resources
optimization for DSP and Mega-flops. This means that designers will have to use the
resources carefully and develop a logical design that uses these resources effectively.

4. We can only use the devices with the Xilinx ISE tools

The Spartan-3 family of devices can only work with the Xilinx ISE tools. These tools
allow designers to program and configure the device using an integrated development
environment (IDE).

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Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA Boards Applications

1. Communication equipment

The devices provide one of the smallest fully configurable, configurable logic
solutions for communication equipment. This typically includes high-speed data
processing, low-power processing, and memory interface applications.

2. Fixed function digital signal processor (DSP)

The devices allow designers to implement custom algorithms for performing DSP
processing. This can include systems management, equalization, signal processing,
voice/data compression/decompression, DLL programming, and digital filters.

3. High-end application processing

The devices allow designers to implement custom algorithms for performing high-end
application processing. This can include high-speed digital signal processing,
advanced high-speed data acquisition, and advanced high-speed data acquisition
systems.

4. Designs with onboard memory

The devices allow designers to create designs that use memory efficiently and
cost-effectively. This includes designs requiring embedded systems and designs
requiring low-power production processes.

5. Designers of programmable logic devices

The devices allow designers to use the Spartan-3 family as a development platform
for creating new or next-generation tools like FPGA configuration and simulation. We
can do this using the Xilinx free WebPACK Design Suite, an ISE tool available
online at www.xilinx.com.

6. Designers of timesharing systems

The devices allow designers to create designs that use memory efficiently and
cost-effectively. This includes design environments that include a processor, DSP, or
any other type of core that we can configure for different tasks.
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7. Designs that use the Xilinx library for analog signal processing

The devices allow designers to create more efficient designs using the Xilinx library
for analog signal processing packages. This can make serial communications more
efficient by enabling higher-speed sampling rates.

8. Designers of industrial control equipment

The devices allow designers to create designs that use memory efficiently and
cost-effectively. This includes designs that require industrial control equipment that
interfaces with the low-voltage power supplies used in industrial environments.

9. Designs that use the Xilinx RAMLink architecture

The devices allow designers to create designs with simpler access to memory I/O
resources because of the onboard memory. We can do this by eliminating complex
memory I/O network design and replacing it with SIMMs or latches.

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Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA Boards

Common specifications include:

 Made In Japan
 RoHS compliance
 Tested all I/O
 Compact size 2.087″ x 2.126″ (53 x 54 mm)
 High-quality four-layer PCB. (Immersion gold)
 3.3 V single power supply operation with onboard 1.2 V/2.5 V regulators
 JTAG buffer for stable download or debug
 JTAG port (7 pin Header)
 Power-on Reset IC
 Two Status LEDs (Power, Done)
 One User Push-Button Switch or One User LED (Selectable)
 Three User LEDs.
 48 MHz Oscillator (50 ppm) or External
 56 I/O PAD 100 mil (2.54 mm) grid
 Configuration Device Platform Flash

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[XCM-001] Xilinx Spartan-3 PQG208 FPGA

board :XC3S400-4PQG208C

XC3S400: 4 DCMs, 16 Multipliers, 288 K Total Block RAM Bits, 100 Maximum
user I/O pins (Board), 141 Maximum user I/O pins (Device), 56 K Maximum
Distributed RAM Bits, 8,064 Logic Cells, and 400 K System Gates

Xilinx Spartan-3 VQG100 FPGA board :XC3S200-4VQG100C

XC3S200: 4 DCMs, 12 Multipliers, 216 K Total Block RAM Bits, 56 Maximum user
I/O pins (Board), 63 Maximum user I/O pins (Device), 30 K Maximum Distributed
RAM Bits, 4,320 Logic Cells, and 200 K System Gates

Conclusion

The growing popularity of FPGA devices, such as the Xilinx Spartan-3 family of
devices, is due to their ability for a wide range of design applications. The devices
provide the ability of designers to use a variety of design methodologies. They include
advanced digital signal processing using Classic Programmer, embedded systems
using the Black Box Programmer, and development platforms for new or
next-generation FPGA design tools.

Related Posts:

1. What is Xilinx Spartan FPGA?

2. PCB Assembly (PCBA) Design Guide

3. How to Understand Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA Better

4. Xilinx XA3S1000-4FGG456I of of XA Spartan-3

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