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From the article "AMD Spartan UltraScale+ samples and evaluation kits are expected to be available for sampling and evaluation in the first half of 2025." For

From the article "AMD Spartan UltraScale+ samples and evaluation kits are expected to be available for sampling and evaluation in the first half of 2025." For hardware products, what is the point of making these announcements a year in advance? Are they available for select partners before 2025?

guepe 3y ago
Yes they are.
Aurornis 3y ago
If you know your product needs these features you can do early prototyping and development on similar or higher end platforms and then switch to this new platform when it becomes available. Having knowledge of upcoming parts is important in hardware engineering for planning purposes.
morphle 3y ago
When you need to decide on what FPGA line you are going to base your products on, you certainly want to know years in advance what new models will obsolete your FPGA products. However, you don't just want to know their specifications but also their price.
- DannyBee 3y ago
  This is kinda true. But the flip side is most of them tell you ahead of time whether something is recommended for new designs, and how long they will guarantee production for. Which is much more important. In this day and age with FPGA companies being merged and spun out left and right, i doubt anyone relies on the future line announcements this second. In more normal times I agree you want to know if you are going down a dead end path.
aylons 3y ago
Oh, yes. Hardware products and projects, specially those complex enough to need an FPGA, will usually have a long development pipeline and even one year seems pretty short. And you can very often prototype with either an overpowered development board or you own prototype board with another FPGA, and then downsize appropriately as the project advances. Most importantly, if you know there will be a viable version in a year, you can postpone the final decision and Xilinx get to avoid having you choosing Altera now if it's possible that their new offering will match your project.
- willis936 3y ago
  Do companies really gamble on their supply chain that hard?
  - blihp 3y ago
    They don't have a choice. FPGA's aren't like vanilla logic chips: they are highly proprietary both in terms of their specific hardware functionality as well as software tool chains and you can't second source them. Some of the larger customers are using them for government contracts (think military and space applications) where they are signing up products they are contractually on the hook for from years to decades.
    - willis936 3y ago
      Yes I know. So any product being developed today or in the next year would be done on a well established option that will be produced for many more years. It still isn't clear to me why such a long runway on the announcement does for anyone. It shouldn't be changing anyone's plans.

guepe 3y ago

Yes they are.

Aurornis 3y ago

If you know your product needs these features you can do early prototyping and development on similar or higher end platforms and then switch to this new platform when it becomes available. Having knowledge of upcoming parts is important in hardware engineering for planning purposes.

morphle 3y ago

When you need to decide on what FPGA line you are going to base your products on, you certainly want to know years in advance what new models will obsolete your FPGA products. However, you don't just want to know their specifications but also their price.

DannyBee 3y ago
This is kinda true. But the flip side is most of them tell you ahead of time whether something is recommended for new designs, and how long they will guarantee production for. Which is much more important. In this day and age with FPGA companies being merged and spun out left and right, i doubt anyone relies on the future line announcements this second. In more normal times I agree you want to know if you are going down a dead end path.

aylons 3y ago

Oh, yes. Hardware products and projects, specially those complex enough to need an FPGA, will usually have a long development pipeline and even one year seems pretty short. And you can very often prototype with either an overpowered development board or you own prototype board with another FPGA, and then downsize appropriately as the project advances. Most importantly, if you know there will be a viable version in a year, you can postpone the final decision and Xilinx get to avoid having you choosing Altera now if it's possible that their new offering will match your project.

willis936 3y ago
Do companies really gamble on their supply chain that hard?
- blihp 3y ago
  They don't have a choice. FPGA's aren't like vanilla logic chips: they are highly proprietary both in terms of their specific hardware functionality as well as software tool chains and you can't second source them. Some of the larger customers are using them for government contracts (think military and space applications) where they are signing up products they are contractually on the hook for from years to decades.
  - willis936 3y ago
    Yes I know. So any product being developed today or in the next year would be done on a well established option that will be produced for many more years. It still isn't clear to me why such a long runway on the announcement does for anyone. It shouldn't be changing anyone's plans.