<whitequark>
so, why doesn't quicklogic use nextpnr?
<whitequark>
the feedback i've seen about vpr is that it is "more of a pain to use than proprietary toolchains" so i'm not looking forward to use it
<TD-Linux>
slightly annoying their devkits aren't available through normal distributors
<daveshah>
CC or quicklogic?
<TD-Linux>
quicklogic
<daveshah>
I think they are planning to sort out something like that soon
<TD-Linux>
at least they have a working online shop it seems
<tnt>
They're also working on a bit more convenient package than 0.4mm bga or 0.35mm wlcsp ...
<TD-Linux>
the EOS-S3 looks like a qfn?
<tnt>
The QFN package was discontinued at their fab so it's not available to buy, it's only used on the quickfeather.
<TD-Linux>
bleh
<TD-Linux>
the ice40 tqfp100 package is so good
<tnt>
iew ... tqfp ...
<TD-Linux>
it's enormous but 2 layer boards!
<tnt>
4l is cheap nowadays, no reason to go for 2l.
<tnt>
also if you _really_ insist you can make a 2l with QFN.
<TD-Linux>
for the quicklogic in particular I kind of wanted to use it with power electronics which push the board a lot bigger. though there is always the multiple PCBs option.
<hitomi2500>
I remember reading a sad story about ECP4. The one about cancelling mass production a few months after the samples were shipped to customer. Could be hoax though.
<daveshah>
Yes, they definitely shipped some samples
<Hoernchen>
and then the customer said ni?
<daveshah>
I don't exactly know why it was cancelled, but I think it was mostly Lattice not being able to compete with Intera/Xilinx in the big FPGA space
<Lofty>
Wasn't their goal to save money by using 65nm?
<daveshah>
I think ECP4 was 40nm like ECP5
<hitomi2500>
Yeah, that's probable pretty much the reason they did cancel the series. The ECP5 was launched later with a message like "small yet powerful"
<daveshah>
oh no, looks like ECP4 was indeed going to be 65nm
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<awygle>
where's my ecp6 :(
<tnt>
ecp-nx you mean
<Lofty>
Probably one of the new FDSOI chips
<daveshah>
Yeah ECP NX it will almost certainly be, don't have any official confirmation
<daveshah>
All Lattice have said is that there are two new families on the FDSOI process coming this year
<tnt>
probably on the 31st december at 23:59 ...
<daveshah>
My guess is that would be an iCE40 successor and an ECP5 successor, but it is also possible they will do a "security" device instead of the iCE40, xo3d esque
<daveshah>
yeah lol
<awygle>
i want an ecp* with 10 Gbps transceivers
<daveshah>
one was supposed to be in H1, so they have two weeks
<awygle>
please and thank you
<tnt>
Well .. 12.5G really ...
<daveshah>
not happening, I saw a primitive name somewhere in radiant of "PCS6" so I would assume 6 or 6.25G
<awygle>
either that or one that's cheaper than the current ones
<daveshah>
not happening either, the NX series so far are much more expensive...
<daveshah>
I don't think you can really get cheaper than ECP5 tbh
<tnt>
6.25G would be nice at least you can do 10G with just 2 of them, that's an improvement.
<tnt>
10G ethernet I mean.
<gruetzkopf>
ECP4 had 6G apparently
<tnt>
Probably why it doesn't exist ... they probably tried setting Vcore=10V to reach that and realized it wasn't lasting long enough.
<tnt>
I'm kind of curious is 6.25G would work on a ecp5-5g ...
<daveshah>
I wouldn't be too surprised if it works, but performance could equally be pretty bad given 5G is arguably marginal already
<awygle>
you can only do ethernet with 2x6.25G with rxaui which is mostly not available :(
<daveshah>
Personally it's 8x SERDES that would be nice
<awygle>
yeah 8x serdes would also be good. or 16x
<awygle>
tbf tho dave, the NX series so far has a bunch of weird custom IP
<daveshah>
yes
<daveshah>
but that's partly because CrossLink == weird custom IP
<awygle>
not necessarily indicative of fab process impact on prices
<daveshah>
it's mostly not custom either
<tnt>
awygle: I found a microsemi phy which is (1) at digikey and (2) has register level doc public ...
<daveshah>
the PCIe is from NorthWest logic, the MIPI from mixel
<awygle>
tnt: without NDA/sign-in?
<tnt>
yeah.
<awygle>
i would be interested in that if you have a link