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Xilinx was founded in early 1984 but the company’s first FPGA—the XC2064—was announced on November 1, 1985; that’s nearly 30 years ago. This ur-FPGA was the brainchild of Xilinx co-founder Ross Freeman; it was designed by Bill Carter; fabricated by Seiko in Japan; and marketed by the world’s first fabless IC vendor—Xilinx—as envisioned and co-founded by CEO Bernie Vonderschmitt. The first working devices powered up in September, 1985. Coincidentally, that’s 30 years ago this month. I discovered that it’s surprisingly hard to find one of these early, early programmable-logic devices at today’s Xilinx HQ. It’s surprisingly hard to find someone who even remembers seeing one of these chips in a package.
7 H! r3 ] A J1 C% g1 z& l* @If I were Doctor Who, I’d jump in my
TARDIS, go back in time 30 years, and pick one up. Alas, I’m not Doctor Who but I do have a TARDIS of sorts.
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The Internet, this blog, and eBay are my TARDIS.
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. h& x$ _+ f& l% i. t9 DI clicked over to eBay a couple of weeks ago, did a quick search on “Xilinx 2064,” and bingo. There was an unused 48-pin DIP with the unmistakable Xilinx logo for sale by a vendor named “ACP Surplus” in Santa Ana, California. The price was $5.97 plus $5 shipping. (Orignal unit price in 1985: $55 to $80.) The eBay product photo showed a date code from early in 1988 but it’s still the original Bill Carter design, give or take a production tweak or two. A few more mouse clicks and the order was placed.
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Here’s the entire block diagram of that original Xilinx XC2064 FPGA:
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Xilinx XC2064 “Logic Cell Array” Block Diagram
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Note that the configurable logic blocks (logic cells) form a regular 8x8 array—thus the original name for the device, a “Logic Cell Array.” Today, we know the descendants of this ur-programmable-logic-device as FPGAs.
8 M# b8 J2 ]! t. o1 O! P4 K" U: }+ ZComparing the specs of the original XC2064 FPGA with the largest FPGA being shipped today, the 20nm Xilinx
Virtex UltraScaleXCVU440, is an eye-opening experience. Here are some key macro-level comparisons:
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Logic Cells | | |
CLB Flip-Flops | | |
Total Block RAM | | |
DSP Slices (GMACs/sec) | | |
Maximum Number of I/O Pins | | |
Differential Multi-Gigabit Transceivers | | |
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We’ve definitely made some progress in 30 years. Today, you can instantiate complex, sophisticated systems entirely in one of today’s FPGAs and many Xilinx customers do.
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My miniature time capsule arrived yesterday by TARDIS post from Southern California:
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6 A& g9 [( s0 J: b( j8 XXilinx XC2064-33 in a 48-pin DIP
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$ n% O) K0 o1 y9 x9 i( n# y; SI certainly don’t plan to plug this antique chip into a system. Instead, I’m going to store it next to a few other artifacts in my warehouse.
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