It's unlikely that newer FPGA's, at least at the high end will have leaded packages in
the future. CPLD's will continue to have them.
Most companies that don't have BGA placement capability already send out most of their
board assembly to specialized assembly houses. Unless you're dong extermely low
volumes or have very low employee salaries (read hobbyist) it's likely to be cheaper
to outsource assembly even if you keep it on-shore.
There are a number of other companies who make low-end low-cost FPGA's that will probably
continue to supply them in quad flat packs. Also note that some "CPLD's" made by companies
other than Xilinx are really small FPGA's by architecture (e.g. Lattice MachXO).
Newer faster products are less likely to be able to use the older QFP packaging because of the
large lead inductance.
20 years ago, the world moved to surface mount components, and many people complained about
lack of availablility of newer parts in through-hole packages. It's about time to get used to leadless
packaging if you want to keep up with technology.
-- Gabor
-- Gabor
