FPGA Inventories/Leadtime

So just an update. I found another authorized distributor who managed to get me some parts. It is Macnica America. They did a better job than any of your other distributors (knew who to speak too). No one from Intel ever got back to me. Kind of sad.

This is what Efinix says:

Unlike traditional FPGAs, Efinix® FPGAs are manufactured on a standard CMOS silicon process - no special recipes or secret sauces. With a standard process, these FPGAs are easier for the fab to produce and they can optimize their production at volume. These production-quality FPGAs meet a sweet spot in the market with fewer production challenges than traditional devices.

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What Intel lacks is competence, leave alone innovation.

Anyone installing Nios II embedded design suite which is an essential part of Quartus will vouch this.

2. Installation of Eclipse for EDS itself is a challenging task. You have to copy paste the plugin from Intel, then enable WSL from Micorsoft , then install Ubuntu from Windows Stores and then some ubuntu tools like "make" via "apt" from Ubuntu.

See how messed up it is.

Engineers that cannot make a proper installation disk cannot be expected to react to a complex problem such as the global semiconductor crisis.

Sorry Donald, you are now riding a terminally sick horse.

LOL look at the executive team at Efinix: https://www.efinixinc.com/company-executive-leadership.html

From: Altera/Cypress, Altera/Xilinx/Lattice, MicroSemi/Mitel, Altera/Micron, Altera, Marvell

One of the big investors is AMD/Xilinx

So your scorekeeping is flawed.

Efinix is in a good position now because they have no large customers soaking up all the parts that can be manufactured.

Appears they use TSMC as a fab based on their news feed.

And it looks like, based on jobs listings, Efinix does hardware design in Penang, Malaysia; and software in Toronto, Canada.

China is not mentioned except for a sales office in Hong Kong, and their use of TSMC as a fab in Taiwan.

Ciccio,

I would say better performance at lower price.

The Cyclone 10LP barely meets 960MBPS LVDS and I had to resort to all tricks to make it work.

With Titanium FPGA of Efinix (rated at 1.5GBPS LVDS) handling LVDS is a breeze. And it has on chip resistors and it has cleaned my layout like anything.

I feel sad about Altera, but there is a lot of catching up with competition for Intel.

Ravi

This story has an happy ending. We migrated to Efinix and survived.

Charles Papon is my hero.

I am pleased to give back this small contribution to the open source community which helped me survive.

Efinix devices are the only readily available FPGA in market to the common engineer (June 2022)
As engineers migrate to Efinix from vendor dependent designs (like designs in AHDL, designs that use proprietary modules, proprietary SoC like Nios ) SpinalHDL and SaxonSoc is a God sent savior. A solid reference code in SpinalHDL is the need of the hour.

Please check out this reference design to kick start your migration for survival:

SaxonSoc/readme.md at dev-0.3 · surabibio/SaxonSoc (github.com)

Ravi Ganesh

Ciccio, nobody is laughing at you.

But you have unrealistic expectations given the current semiconductor market realities.

You are four people that have spent US$300 over four years on your project.

My definition of this is a hobby.

There are companies with dozens to hundreds of people that can't ship existing product because they can't get parts.

Not just FPGAs, but microcontrollers, memory, discrete devices. All types are under severe allocation by vendors.

So you really do need to open your eyes and look at the real world.

Welcome to the REAL WORLD.

Big companies (ie, strategic accounts) that source FPGAs (and all other devices by the way, FPGAs are not unique) have large purchasing departments and they don't normally buy thru distributors like Mouser, Digikey, etc but go directly to manufacturers like Intel/Altera, AMD/Xiline, etc AND negotiate pricing/delivery CONTRACTS. They lock up their needs well into the future. Any uncommited/unpurchased parts then make it out thru distributors to those who buy sporadically in small volume. You may not like it, but that is how the world works.

Unfair and unacceptable to you, probably true. I would feel the same. But grounds for a class action suit? Not likely.

I would say all the major FPGA vendors are in the same boat. They are all dependent upon a fab .

I know I'm seeing the same issues with Intel/Altera, AMD/Xilinx and Lattice. So if you do switch to someone else, make sure you can actually get the parts, then buy them first before changing the board. Otherwise they may not be available when you get the board done.

Even then, other components like voltage regulators and microprocessors are in short supply. I've been seeing 2023 time frames for several of these items already as well.

Pete

Thankyou CICCIO for exposing this.

I too placed an order with Mouser and this is the last reply I got from Mouser:

Dear sir,

We will check with the supplier and come back to you soon on this

Best Regards,

Mala.R

Customer Service Representative

Mouser Electronics India Pvt Ltd .- https://www.mouser.in/manufacturer/

(080) 42650000 Extn:4258

www.mouser.com

I feel very sad and sorry for Altera.

Your thoughts on how you are moving forward would be supportive.

Ravi Ganesh

I was able to get 25 nos of 10CL006YU256C8G at $30/pcs.

It was at one time $230!

The black marketters are unable to hold stock.

Can Intel atleast be kind enought to inform a date when prodcution for Cyclone 10 will resume.