Designing with CPLDs

Xilinx CPLDs Provide Maximum Design Benefits

Understanding the features and benefits of using CPLDs can help enable ease of design, lower development costs, and speed products to market.

CPLD Benefits at a Glance:

• Ease of design
• Lower development costs
• More product revenue for your money
• Reduced board area
• Increased system reliability
• Speed your product time to market

Get started now by following these four easy steps:

Step 1: Choosing a CPLD

In choosing the CPLD that is right for a design, you need to make the following determinations (the priority of each will vary according to your design):

Density and I/O

• You can find the size of Xilinx CPLD required (logic density and I/O) for your design by submitting your design to the free downloadable ISE™ WebPACK™ software

Performance

• Xilinx CPLDs come in a variety of speed grades so that you only pay for the performance you need. Use ISE WebPACK to determine the speed grade you need to meet your system timing requirements.

Voltage and Power

• Different Xilinx CPLD families have different voltage (supply and I/O) and power (standby and dynamic) requirements.

Packaging

• Xilinx CPLDs come in a range of packages, from inexpensive QFP packages to ultra small chip-scale pages, to high-I/O-count BGA packages.

Xilinx CPLD Families

• CoolRunner™ Series
  The CoolRunner Series of Xilinx CPLDs feature the lowest-power, highest-performance devices in the industry. These CPLDs deliver advanced features to support system-level designs such as I/O banking, sophisticated clock control, and superb design security.
    
• XC9500 Series
  Offered in 5.0V (XC9500 family), 3.3V (XC9500XL family), and 2.5V (XC9500XV family) versions, these low-cost CPLD families provide the high performance, expansive feature set, and flexibility demanded by today's cutting-edge system design.

Step 2: Choosing a Software Package

CPLD and Simple FGPA Designs

To implement basic CPLD or FPGA designs, you will need our free ISE WebPACK software tool.

Any CPLD/ FPGA Designs

Beyond ISE WebPACK software tools, Xilinx offers a variety of software packages to meet various design requirements. Click here to determine the software package that best fits your designing needs.

Step 3: Implementing a Design

After selecting a CPLD device and downloading the necessary software, implementing the design is next. Implementation includes:

• Design entry
• Programming and testing the prototype
• Documentation

Each of the CPLD product pages contain links to supporting application notes, reference designs, development boards, configuration tools, and other useful information to help complete designs quickly and easily.

Step 4: Purchasing CPLDs

There are several ways to purchase Xilinx solutions:

• Xilinx Online Store
• Xilinx North American or international distributors

Each outlet offers silicon, software, programming hardware and more. The Xilinx sales offices and customer support center make sure that the use of Xilinx CPLDs is a simple and satisfying experience.