compiler for Xilinx Spartan 1 (XCS) family

Hi,

I found some old Spartan 1 FPGA at a local distributor, who are pretty
cheap. But I don't have a compiler for these FPGAs, because the Xilinx ISE
version 5 and 6 don't support them any more.

Does anybody know, if there is still a compiler available?

Regards,
Stephan

Stephan Mueller

Hi,

Stephan Mueller wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I found some old Spartan 1 FPGA at a local distributor, who are pretty
> cheap. But I don't have a compiler for these FPGAs, because the Xilinx ISE
> version 5 and 6 don't support them any more.
>
> Does anybody know, if there is still a compiler available?
>
> Regards,
> Stephan
>
>

You are probably looking for a synthesis tool? That is a bit tricky.
Xilinx has what they call the ISE classic version, which can be
downloaded for free from the Xilinx web site. As far as I remember this
version does not have yet the Xilinx synthesis tool (XST) that comes
with the current ISE or WebPack. Rather it relies on a third party
synthesis tool, which you need to buy from companies like Synopsis or
Mentor.

I was looking into that too and hoping that maybe Icarus Verilog would
support it, as it says that it can do synthesis. I posted a question to
the fpga newsgroup a couple of months ago and got this answer from
Stephen Williams, the developor of Icarus:

http://groups.google.de/groups?hl=de...ewsservers.com

It sounds like it should work, but I did not try it myself.

Guenter

Guenter Dannoritzer

In message <clbngk$5fp$00$>
Guenter Dannoritzer <> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Stephan Mueller wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I found some old Spartan 1 FPGA at a local distributor, who are pretty
> > cheap. But I don't have a compiler for these FPGAs, because the Xilinx
> > ISE version 5 and 6 don't support them any more.
> >
> > Does anybody know, if there is still a compiler available?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Stephan
> >
> >
>
> You are probably looking for a synthesis tool? That is a bit tricky.
> Xilinx has what they call the ISE classic version, which can be
> downloaded for free from the Xilinx web site. As far as I remember this
> version does not have yet the Xilinx synthesis tool (XST) that comes
> with the current ISE or WebPack. Rather it relies on a third party
> synthesis tool, which you need to buy from companies like Synopsis or
> Mentor.

Spartan 1 support was with the Synopsys ExpressVHDL synthesis tool,
which Xilinx stopped distributing. XST supports Spartan 2 onwards.
Support for earlier families won't be added; Spartan 1 is not for
new designs.

You may be able to buy a license for a suitable synthesis tool, but
it won't be cheap.

Dave

Dave Higton

"Stephan Mueller" <> wrote in message news:<>...
> Hi,
>
> I found some old Spartan 1 FPGA at a local distributor, who are pretty
> cheap. But I don't have a compiler for these FPGAs, because the Xilinx ISE
> version 5 and 6 don't support them any more.
>
> Does anybody know, if there is still a compiler available?
>
> Regards,
> Stephan
You need to download ISE Classics from the Xilinx Website. Do a
search on Xilinx' site and look for ISE Classics?

Later,

Jeremy

Jeremy Webb

Jeremy Webb wrote:
>
> "Stephan Mueller" <> wrote in message news:<>...
> > Hi,
> >
> > I found some old Spartan 1 FPGA at a local distributor, who are pretty
> > cheap. But I don't have a compiler for these FPGAs, because the Xilinx ISE
> > version 5 and 6 don't support them any more.
> >
> > Does anybody know, if there is still a compiler available?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Stephan
> You need to download ISE Classics from the Xilinx Website. Do a
> search on Xilinx' site and look for ISE Classics?

That will get him the back end tools, but not the compiler.

--

Rick "rickman" Collins


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