In 1990 and not so far from Tel Aviv, I started my first FPGA design. It was a new XC3090 FPGA from Xilinx.
Until then, I was using EPLDs (mostly Altera’s EP900) in several projects and was fascinated by the fact that I can replace several EPLDs with a single FPGA.
Working with EPLDs was fun, but I had to connect 4-5 together to create a single design. Partitioning the design into multiple EPLDs was not easy and introduces various challenges such as timing issues, rewiring PCB, version control and more.
FPGA offered easy programmability but also many more gates in a single chip. For my first project, I have decided to use the XC3090 — that offered 900 flip flops. As it was just the beginning of the 90’, 900 was just what I needed.
Going down the memory lane is fun, especially when you can easily see the remarkable progress in the FPGA domain thanks to companies like Xilinx.
What about the other FPGA models that Xilinx developed? this page consists of the old and obsolete FPGA models and their data sheets.
Xilinx XC FPGA Family
[table]
Model,Launch,Data Sheet
XC2064 ,1985,Data Sheet
XC3020,1988, Data Sheet
XC4000,1991, Data Sheet
XC3100,1992, Data Sheet
XC3200,1992, N/A
XC5000, 1994, Data Sheet
XC6200, 1995, Data Sheet
XC8100, 1996, Data Sheet
[/table]
Xilinx Spartan FPGA Family
[table]
Model,Launch,Data Sheet
Spartan,1998, Data Sheet
Spartan-II,2000, Data Sheet
Spartan-3E,2005, Data Sheet
Spartan-3A,2007, Data Sheet
Spartan-6,2009, Data Sheet
Spartan-7, 2015, Data Sheet
[/table]
Xilinx Virtex FPGA Family
[table]
Model,Launch,Data Sheet
Virtex,1998, Data Sheet
Virtex-E,1999, Data Sheet
Virtex II,2001, Data Sheet
Virtex-4,2005, Data Sheet
Virtex-5,2006, Data Sheet
Virtex-6,2009, Data Sheet
Virtex-7, 2010, Data Sheet
[/table]