Forum Discussion
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
12 years agospeed wise, the new generation chips maybe better. But when you put your design into dedicated FPGA it is more complicated.
1) the highest speed of last generation FPGA maybe faster than the current generation low speed FPGA. especially when the upgrade of the FPGA is mainly for marketing purpose rather than technology. 2) even the FPGA is faster, it is not equal to say that the program can be fitted into it. It depends on the pin location definition and program optimization for the dedicated FPGA. the faster FPGA can give you overall more headroom for your application, but you still need to put your effort to make it work. 3) The FPGA with more resources, such as more memory, LEs, PLLs, pins, etc. is not always good for speed. Sometimes it needs longer path for the logic from pin to pin. Again, if the old FPGA satisfies your need it is not necessary to upgrade it since each FPGA has a very long life time.