Specifications

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designed power supply chain to provide the 1.5v, 2.5v, and 3.3v sources required
for operation
Figure 2.2.2.1-1 demonstrates how this FPGA breakout chip is similar in size to
the Cyclone2 offering from Altera. However, the breakout board does not offer an
easy method of powering and programming the chip, so as a prototyping platform
Xilinx’s offering seems to be a bit more limited. Also much like the Cyclone2, the
Spartan 3E cannot have an approximate power consumption calculation made
until the logical design has been completed and tested, which makes planning for
any kind of power delivery fairly difficult. Xilinx provides a free development
software package for this chip called ISE Webpack, which allows for limited
software development on a select line of FPGAs. ISE is a widely used program,
with a good online support community, and is even used widely in educational
institutions for logical synthesis and testing, meaning the developers should
already have some familiarity with the development platform. The limitations of
the free development software are apparent however, as there are upper limits
on the size of the program code that can be synthesized and programmed into
this FPGA. Much like the Altera offering, Xilinx does not offer any pre-written
modules of basic hardware, such as a serial UART, for integration into a custom
digital design, thereby increasing the time and effort spent trying to get
communications established between different systems using this chip in their
design.
Figure 2.2.2.1-1 Xilinx Spartan 3E Breakout w/ actual size reference, reprinted
with permission from Sparkfun.com