AMD has plans to support a little known chip for at least another 16 years — and no, it is neither a Ryzen, nor a Threadripper or an Epyc CPU

Spartan UltraScale+ is the latest addition to AMD‘s extensive portfolio of cost-optimized Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and adaptive SoCs. It has been introduced to replace the Xilinx Spartan 6 and Spartan 7 lines.

The new Spartan UltraScale+ devices are designed for a wide range of I/O-intensive applications at the edge. AMD says its latest FPGAs can deliver up to 30 percent lower total power consumption compared to the previous generation – energy efficiency is a hot topic right now – while boasting the most robust set of security features in the AMD’s cost-optimized portfolio.

“For over 25 years the Spartan FPGA family has helped power some of humanity’s finest achievements, from lifesaving automated defibrillators to the CERN particle accelerator advancing the boundaries of human knowledge,” said Kirk Saban, corporate vice president, Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group, AMD. “Building on proven 16nm technology, the Spartan UltraScale+ family’s enhanced security and features, common design tools, and long product lifecycles further strengthen our market-leading FPGA portfolio and underscore our commitment to delivering cost-optimized products for customers.”

Into the 2040s… and beyond!

The Spartan UltraScale+ FPGAs offer a number of state-of-the-art security features, including support for Post-Quantum Cryptography with NIST-approved algorithms to provide robust IP protection against ever-evolving threats. They also include a physical unclonable function, providing each device with a unique fingerprint for added security.

The Spartan UltraScale+ FPGA family sampling and evaluation kits are expected to be available in the first half of 2025, with tools support- starting with the AMD Vivado Design Suite – in the fourth quarter of 2024.

What about that super-long lifecycle being promised? AMD says the Spartan UltraScale+ FPGA will be supported into the 2040s, and this is just the standard lifecycle. AMD will likely offer an extended lifecycle on top of that (as it has with past FPGAs), which will take the chip’s support well into the future.

That might seem like some serious generosity on AMD’s behalf, but as Serve The Home explains, “Spartan FPGAs are often in products that take years to design and then are sold and used for decades in the future.”