Vivado 2018.1 missing ES parts

[josephdanzer]

After installing Vivado 2018.1, including device support for US+ ES parts, the ES parts are not visible in the new project part selector.

Screen shot showing that I have selected and installed the ES devices

Screen shot of the part selector in 2018.1

Same screen shot from 2017.4 where the ES parts are visible

[jmcclusk]

I think it's fairly normal for Engineering Sample devices to be removed from the tools when they go into production.   ES is reserved for early access customers, and there are usually bugs in that silicon.  There's no reason to keep ES design files around forever in the tools.   Vivado 2018.1 is gigantic already, and it takes over 34G bytes now to install it. 

[evgenis1]

Hi @josephdanzer , 

I run into exact same issue with Vivado 2017.3. Some of the ES parts are getting removed in newer Vivado revisions.

There is a solution for that, but it requires involvement of Xilinx FAE. 

First thing is to get a special license file that enables removed ES devices.

Second, run "enable_beta_device*" TCL command (it's undocumented and requires * at the end). You might want to add that command to to vivado_init file, so that it's executed every time Vivado is started.

Thanks,

Evgeni 

[anatoli]

Hello @josephdanzer,

Please note that from 2018.1 release of Vivado, many ES devices became production devices (as expected) and are no longer Engineering Sample deices and that is the reason why you could select/see these in the earlier version of Vivado (prior 2018.1). Please note that VU9P, as well as VU7P, VU3P etc. are now Production devices and these are no longer available as ES devices from 2018.1 release of Vivado.

If you must target VU9P ES part in your design, you would need to use previous version of Vivado  for this, e.g. 2017.4.1.

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Hope the above is clear.

[josephdanzer]

Thanks for the information. We have a few ES parts that have been working well for us in a production setting for several months, that we would like to continue to use.

For those are we just stuck using the 2017.4 version of Vivado? 

Would it be safe to use a bit file built for the production device on an ES part?

We are using the VU9P part.