Honored Contributor
Honored ContributorAnagonost,
It was my belief that this was always disclosed... Anyways that is part of the reason for offering the larger device; any limitations in the ES chip are made up for by giving a much larger device for the same cost. Altera always publishes a detailed errata document for engineering sample devices describing what is not supported. For the 2S60ES, M-RAM memory where byte enables are used is one item, and dual-ported M-RAM memories (with one or both clocks < 100Mhz) is the other. These are likely the only issues that affect Nios users. Here is the full errata: http://www.altera.com/literature/ds/esstx2fpga.pdf (http://www.altera.com/literature/ds/esstx2fpga.pdf) So in the end I don't think this is so bad... if you assume the worst and do not use the M-RAM in your 2S60ES at all, I contend that you are not 'losing' anything over the 2S30. Let's take the example of the Nios II Stratix II kit. This will *normally* (after the ES period) ship with a 2S30 chip. The 2S30 has one M-RAM block (64Kbytes), 144 M4K blocks (approx 72Kbytes), and about 12K of M512 blocks.. If the 2S60ES is subsititued and M-RAMs are not used at all, the 2S60ES still has about the same on-chip memory (approx 128 kbytes M4K, 20K M512) memory, plus twice the additional logic elements (which can also be used for memory in a pinch), DSP blocks PLLS, etc. My source for the above numbers is the Stratix II handbook, page 21: http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/stx2/s...x2_handbook.pdf (http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/stx2/stratix2_handbook.pdf) If this is still bothersome to you and your board is in good working order, I'd suggest contacting your Altera sales office or distributor and explain how you did not see the ES information before obtaining the kit; once the 2S30 kits are available I'd imagine they could swap for you... but in my opinion (as an engineer, not as an Altera employee) you have the better deal with the 2S60ES... I say this because I can do that many more interesting projects that fill the chip with the 2S60ES board on my desk that would be a stretch in the 2S30!.
