Xilinx series xc3000

[VolkD]

I have quite a Xilinx xc3000 series chips. I want to know which tools are programmed (VHDL), and what programmer is to use?

[bigtoy]

This is a tough one. The xc3000 chips are very old - they date back to 1998, more than a decade ago. They are also very small FPGAs (very few gates) compared to even the cheap FPGAs of today. In their software Xilinx stopped supporting these chips years ago. Even their "classic" versions of software don't support these chips. See:
http://www.xilinx.com/ise/products/classics/parts_list.htm

The sheer age of these parts means that finding a programmer may also be a problem, and, if you can find a copy of the old design software, it'll be primitive by todays standards and you may have trouble running it on a modern OS. And you certainly won't get any support if you have any troubles.

The very biggest xc3000 back then had 7500 gates. Even a cheap Xilinx spartan-2 today has 15,000 gates. For example:
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/XC2S15-5VQG100C/122-1309-ND/826912

You can use the free Xilinx webpack to do the design:
http://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/ise-design-suite/ise-webpack.htm
and if you google you can find many programmers available.

If you want to do an FPGA project, I'd suggest throwing those ancient xc3000 chips away, and using a cheap modern FPGA instead. I think you'll find it a lot easier and a lot cheaper.

[VolkD]

bigtoy, everything you said is true. But I must say that my specific problem. I need to change the operation of the device is already made​​. In fact, it would be cheapest to write a new program for the XC3090. Sorry to see that Xilinx has more support for these chips. That's why I'm looking for, if the location can be obtained from the appropriate software and programmer for this series

[bigtoy]

That's a tough spot to be in. Have a read of this:

http://www.fpga-faq.com/FAQ_Pages/0009_Xilinx_sw_versions.htm

Looks like you'll need to get an ancient version of Xact, and run it in DOS (command-line tools) unless you've got a copy of Windows 3.11 still hanging around.

I can't see your board, but I'm guessing there's an EPROM on it which contains the bitfile for the FPGA. If so, read off what type of EPROM it is, and then you'd need an EPROM eraser and an EPROM programmer.

To get the old software, your best bet most likely is to give Xilinx tech support a call.

[VolkD]

Thank you, now that I am aware that a program that enables you to work with the XC3000 series called Xact, the thing much easier.

[bigtoy]

Good luck - I have a suspicion you're going to need it.

[VolkD]

I found many interesting things here: http://ftp://ftp.xilinx.com/

[Zorktronics]

  Hi VolkD, have you found a solution for this problem?
  
  I worked with xilinx XC9500, Spartan 3A and 3E, Altera and Lattice ones, on my Xilinx experience, the only way to work with these devices is to do it on the XACT program, the XC3000 have easy to solder packages to work in hobby projects, this is a great concern on these projects and may worth the wasted time.

  I've the same problem, but on the last week i talked with a guy that managed to get the XACT 5.0.0, EPLD/CPLD only version. This guy is trying to get the right XACT version with another hobbyists.

  As you can see, on the attached pictures, this software is working, but i couldn't get the syntesis tool to work yet. I'm trying to use  Synplify 5.x, that can generate the XNF netlist files, necessary for the XACT. I think that these tools are a good solution for our problem.

  Please stay in touch if you have any other idea to solve this problem!

[Zorktronics]

  I found the necessary stuff for the Foundation 1.5, suitable for XC3000A/L, if anybody need, please tell me.