Nu Horizons to offer Spartan-6 FPGA family

A Nu Horizons Electronics Corp product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jun 18, 2009

Nu Horizons has announced that the next generation of Xilinx's Spartan FPGAs for cost-sensitive applications will soon be available.

The 11-member Spartan-6 family delivers expanded densities ranging from 3,400 to 148,000 logic cells, with half the power consumption of previous Spartan families and faster, more comprehensive connectivity.

There are two FPGA platforms within the Spartan-6 family.

Spartan-6 LX FPGAs are optimised for applications that require absolute lowest cost, supporting up to 150K logic density, 4.8Mb memory, integrated memory controllers and high-performance system IP, such as DSP blocks, with an open standards-based configuration.

Spartan-6 LXT FPGAs extend the LX platform to deliver up to eight 3.125Gbps GTP transceivers and an integrated PCI Express-compatible core for serial connectivity.

According to the company, Spartan-6 FPGAs offer differentiated technology for cost- and power-sensitive markets.

A high-performance, integrated memory controller core supports DDR, DDR2, DDR3 and mobile DDR memories, along with a hardened multi-port bus structure for predictable timing and performance of up to DDR2/DDR3 800 (400MHz).

Design wizards make the process of building memory controllers for Spartan-6 FPGAs simple and straightforward.

The sixth generation in the Spartan FPGA Series, the Spartan-6 FPGA family is fabricated on proven, low-power, 45nm, nine-metal layer, dual-oxide process technology.

The Spartan-6 FPGA family's efficient, dual-register six-input look-up-table (LUT) logic structure leverages the proven Virtex architecture to enable cross-platform compatibility and to optimise system performance.

A selection of built-in system-level blocks, including DSP slices, high-speed transceivers and PCI Express interface cores, is also derived from the Virtex Series for greater system-level integration.

Advanced power management technology and the ability to operate at a lower-power 1.0V core option enable the Spartan-6 FPGA family to achieve 65 per cent lower power than previous Spartan families.

Fast, flexible input/outputs (I/Os) enable a more than 12Gbps memory access bandwidth with 3.3V compatibility and more environmentally friendly RoHS-compliant Pb-free packaging.