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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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11 years ago

What good is a subscription if they remove support?

I just brought up my newly installed 14.0 and low and behold, it only supports the last 2 stratix devices. ie it only supports ST IV and ST V. So my subscription is now totally useless until I have a board with a "newer" chip on them.

I wish I knew this a few months ago, I wouldn't have wasted my money.

So, next year, guess what? Forget Altera, they just lost 2K+ until I have a need to design a new board. This may take a few years since, my "old" ST III designs still run as fast as any of the new devices and the ST IV an V devices don't support my IO requirements.

Can I get a refund?????

5 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    11 years ago

    What's the problem with using a previous Quartus version to maintain the "old" designs and recent Quartus for the new ones?

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    11 years ago

    You licence entitles you to use any version of quartus, or Max Plus II. So you can compile code for all chips going back to the 1990s

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    11 years ago

    That isn't the point. The point is that I paid over 2K for no reason. There are compile speed improvements that would be nice to have. There are bug fixes that may come up that I need but can't use. I don't know how many times I have found a bug only to be told switch to the newer software and it will be different.(maybe not fixed but definitely different!)

    There were valid hardware differences on why I couldn't use ST IV or V in my latest designs that are only 1 year old. Now, I'm being penalized for being forced to use the ST III. Heck, when I started the board design, I couldn't even buy the size ST V that I needed even if the IO did work for it.

    And don't even bring up the tech support. I know I can count on one hand the times in the last 15 years that tech support actually solved any problem that I had( and still have fingers left over). I usually know more than they do. The only useful help that I have ever gotten has been from the FAEs at Arrow.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    11 years ago

    I assume you're just venting. There isnt really a lot you can do. You'll have the same problem with Xilinx - Vivado only supports the 7 series chips, and ISE doesnt. ISE development will stop soon enough.

    I dont really know what you want from this post. Altera supports has been mostly ok for me. Ive had phonecalls directly from very knowledgable people. FAEs are usually just front men who forward problems onto Altera tech support anyway. They often know enough about everything to get by, but not in much depth. When there is a deeper problem they often know who to contact in altera.

    What exactly do you want?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    11 years ago

    Btw - if you can increase your chip volume, you'll likely find your subscription costs decreasing (to £0 if you sell enough chips).