Why is the Spartan 3E driver only allowed for educational use?

[Sparkette]

I don't have a Spartan 3E, but I'm just wondering: why does NI say people are only allowed to use the Spartan 3E driver for educational use? Don't they want their FPGA module to be usable on as much hardware as possible, so more companies would have a reason to buy it? Why would they introduce an arbitrary restriction like that? (Also, why doesn't Xilinx create their own driver without such a restriction?)

 

Also, with that driver, would I be able to program a Digilent BASYS Spartan 3E board? I'd like an answer quickly, because I found one on eBay that's Buy It Now, but I'm afraid someone will bid before I know it'll work.

Edited September 9, 2014 by flarn2006

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

I don't have a Spartan 3E, but I'm just wondering: why does NI say people are only allowed to use the Spartan 3E driver for educational use? Don't they want their FPGA module to be usable on as much hardware as possible, so more companies would have a reason to buy it? Why would they introduce an arbitrary restriction like that? (Also, why doesn't Xilinx create their own driver without such a restriction?)

 

Also, with that driver, would I be able to program a Digilent BASYS Spartan 3E board? I'd like an answer quickly, because I found one on eBay that's Buy It Now, but I'm afraid someone will bid before I know it'll work.

 

There are many possible reasons. Not all may be considered by NI but some of them for sure. Professional FPGA development tools are a pricy thing. LabVIEW is in there somewhere in the lower middle of the price range with other solutions from Cadence and similar being considerably more expensive. Also the FPGA compiler tools from Xilinx themselves as well as other FPGA manufacturers when bought for professional use have a pretty steep price tag.

 

The sale of Spartan 3E tools has an entirely different meaning for Xilinx than NI. For Xilinx it is a means to get their chips used in more designs, for NI it is a means to get people distracted from buying cRIO and myRIO hardware. Even someone without a commercial background will be able to see the difference. You can't rationalize the decisions of a corporate company with your desire to get as many things as possible for as little money as possible.

 

NI without doubt had to make a deal with Xilinx to be allowed to use their FPGA compiler tool chain within LabVIEW and even though Xilinx is of course interested to sell their chips in the end, they hardly will have presented their compiler tools, which represent a very major investment in terms of software developer time, for free to NI. So NI had to make a significant investment for the FPGA compiler integration into LabVIEW, both in terms of redistribution fees for the Xilinx compiler tool chain as well as the development work for the LabVIEW integration. Part of that cost get carried by the sales of the cRIO and other FPGA based hardware products from NI. When used with the Spartan 3E developer board there is absolutely no hardware sale involved for NI and you have pointed out yourself how there are tools out there to avoid even paying any LabVIEW fees to NI. So there is absolutely no interest for NI to support Spartan 3E and other non-NI hardware with their software tools outside of education. NI has a strong dedication to support educational institutions because some of the students may be working within NI over some time and others may be going to other employers who might be a potential customer for NI hardware in the future.

 

Hobbyists as bad as that may sound, are much less likely to bring in future sales. They either don't work in an environment that is a potential customer for NI, don't have purchasing influence power, or if they work in a place that could be interesting for NI, they most likely have professional means to contact NI to get some loaner or other special deal for evaluation purposes. NI is not and most likely will never be in the market for hobbyist hardware. That market has a very low margin with very short product life cycle and hard to beat free software tools, although you have to accept that the quality of the software tools may at times be less than ideal and support for them may drop at the blink of an eye if the main developer finds another more interesting target.

[Sparkette]

Good explanation, thanks! And you mentioned tools to avoid paying for LabVIEW, the difference is that that's illegal. Maybe that's why there's still no way to get the raw VHDL code...perhaps if I get an fpga I'll try to fix that

Do you happen to know if the BASYS is compatible with that driver? It uses the Spartan 3E.

Edited September 9, 2014 by flarn2006