Re: New project...PCI based servo control board

[John Sheahan <jrsheahan-at-optushome.com.au>]

On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 09:55:41PM -0500, Craig Edwards wrote:
> 
> Agreed.  With regard to long term availability we need to make sure the FPGA
> is built on a mainstream process that will be in high volume production for
> a long time.  Also, I prefer a non-volatile architecture, i.e. one which
> doesn't require a boot process during power up, but there is a cost
> trade-off with regard to SRAM based FPGAs. 
> 

I think you will be doing really well to get more than perhaps 5 years
availability from any fpga today.   There are no mainstream, long-life 
processes any more.  Eg go back 8-10 years to the Xilinx 4000 - seems
to be no longer available.

Choose the supply rail you want to use first,  work from there.
If you were to pick 5V (say) then don't expect more than a couple more
years methinks.

I'm not  down on FPGA's here.    Write in verilog (VHDL for
the alternative  religion) and resynthesize for the
faster/bigger/cheaper/lower-voltage in a couple of years, when
the current parts go away.

john