Cable Limitations; Xchecker Hardware Drawbacks; Multilinx Hardware Advantages - Xilinx MultiLINX Series Hardware User's Manual

Cable Limitations

Hardware User Guide
Note All Hardware Debugger Software versions prior to 2.1i do
not support the MultiLINX Cable. The Hardware Debugger Soft-
ware only supports the MultiLINX Cable in the 2.1i release.
For specific information on using the download cables with the Hard-
ware Debugger Software, see the Hardware Debugger Guide. Consult
the JTAG Programmer Guide for more information about using this
software.
The MultiLINX Cable is compatible in supporting Readback for all
the FPGAs supported by the XChecker Cable. In addition to the
supporting legacy devices, the MultiLINX Cable supports the devices
that were not supported by the XChecker Cable. Supported devices
include those devices in the 4000E, 4000XL, and SPARTAN families
whose bitfile size is more than 256K bits. The MultiLINX Cable will
also support readback for the new Virtex family.
Note Debug is not available with the MultiLINX Cable when using
the Hardware Debugger Software in the 2.1i Xilinx release version.

XChecker Hardware Drawbacks

Following are the limitations of the XChecker cable.
•
Cannot support readback for devices whose bitfile size is more
than 256K bits.
•
Only supports RS-232.
•
Has less user control (only 2 sets of 8 flying wires each).

MultiLINX Hardware Advantages

Following are the advantages of the MultiLINX cable.
•
Fast download, readback & verify using the USB port.
•
More configuration modes are supported.
•
Supports both RS-232 ports and USB ports.
•
Compatible with the currently supported devices for Readback &
Verify.
•
Supports new devices that are not supported by XChecker due to
RAM size limitation.
Cable Hardware
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