New Contributor
New ContributorSilicon expert is a service provided by Avnet, i.e. these part numbers most likely came from there. How does the sourcing (logistical information) affect the functional compatibility (technical topic)?
Regular ContributorFPGAs generally fall into two groups:
(1) Those devices with non-volatile internal memory that store their programming contents when powered off (CPLDs generally do this).
and
(2) Those devices with only volatile internal memory that lose their programming when powered off (most FPGAs, esp larger ones).
Group (1) devices can be pre-programmed by a vendor/distributor prior to delivery, so that they are 'live' when an assembled board is first powered on. Most all modern devices have the capability of being reprogrammed in circuit also.
Group (2) devices will be blank when first powered on, and will go thru a configuration cycle to read their programming from some external source (like a SPI EEPROM, or an attached uProcessor, etc).
If you have a board with a group (1) device AND it happens to come pre-programmed from a vendor with an INCOMPATIBLE design for your system, it could possibly do damage when first powered on. So ideally if you can only source preprogrammed devices with 'program X' but your system requires 'program Y' you would need to get those devices preprogrammed (again) to overwrite the irrelevant 'program X' image. Only if you knew that 'program X' was benign in your application could you build with it and then reprogram the devices to 'program Y' yourself.
You still need to get SiliconExperts/AVNET to tell you what the extra suffix characters mean.
