Xilinx is great, but everyone needs a 'number 2'.
My limited experience tells me Xilinx is top-notch when it comes to software development for their FPGA/CPLD's. However, the one thing that turns me off about them is their commitment to BGA style packaging for all their newest devices.

On the other hand, it seems Actel's newest devices are present on 144-pin and 208-pin QFP's.
I've been looking at one of their flagship SoC'sActel. Checking their flagship ProAsic3 FPGA's leads to similar features. Digikey has the 208-pin for $71ea...
Some intriguing features of their flagship SoC:
100-MHz/32-kHz on board oscillators,
analog front end,
100MHz 32-bit ARM CPU,
largest devices available in 144-pin QFP & 208-pin QFP.

Anyone have experience with their development software? It appears to be free...

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

Note that the ARM is a soft core, so it will eat plenty of resources. Also, their dual port SRAM is rather small compared to Xilinx. Even their biggest device only has 144 Kb of dual port RAM, while the smallest Spartan 6 has 216 Kb, and the XC6SLX9 we're using has 576 Kb.

Actel's A3PE3000, E-series ProAsic3, has 504kbits of DP SRAM...
Also, Actels' FPGA's retain programming, so no PROM needed. This can be a plus and a negative, as multiple PROM's can extend flexibility of one Xilinx FPGA.
But PROM's are expensive and their FPGA takes some time (<1 second for XC6SLX9) to be programmed upon power-up.







EDIT: (11/22/12) Clarified

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

The Spartan 6 will also work with common serial flash chips. These are cheaper. It still takes time to load, though.

I went and did some research and started this thread because of what I'd read yesterday in the doc's for the ORSOC Graphics Accelerator project on Github, that it was made for the Actel 1500E device. I had commented earlier in another thread about another person who has his version (maybe the creator) on opencores.org. And that this ORSOC project had no chance of fitting in a QFP Spartan 6. It was made for a Spartan 6 on an ATLAS board. This is a "Xilinx Spartan®-6 LX45 FPGA in a 324-pin BGA package"... The key here being the Actel 1500E and even the larger 3000E FPGA's are available in a 208-pin QFP package, unlike a comparable Spartan 6. Although these Actel FPGA's appear to have 3-input LUTs as their basic structure, compared to the Spartan 6's 6-input LUT.

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

I haven't used Actel in a few years, but remember thinking it was REALLY slow to download even simple configurations. After switching to Xilinx I found the Xilinx larger building blocks more sensible, leading to fewer layers of logic. Shift registers, RAMS and register files are a natural fit for Xilinx and painful to implement in Actel FPGAs.

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In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. ...Jan van de Snepscheut