EPCQ and EPCQ-L are discontinued (notification 02/14/2018)

[Altera_Forum]

Hi, 

 I just found this "PRODUCT DISCONTINUANCE NOTIFICATION PDN1802" which says that EPCQL256-512-1024 and some EPCQ are discontinued because flash vendor is stopping production. https://media.digikey.com/pdf/pcns/altera/pdn1802.pdf  Is there official alternatives for EPCQ-L recommended for new designs? Now it's written everywhere that Altera can not guarantee any replacement part behavior. I already use in the past Spansion or Micron replacement parts. But now, common packages are BGA24 or WSON and both are not easy to solder/desolder manually to test parts.  So as conf flash are critical parts of FPGA designs, we should get soon some official guidelines or white paper. Or maybe new flash part? Do anybody found something?  Thanks for feedbacks.

[Altera_Forum]

i'm really interested in finding out the exact same things. would really appreciate if someone could answer them. if you find some answers please update OP and thanks for the pdf doc.

[Altera_Forum]

EPCQ256SI16N>>N25Q256A13ESF serial configuration is fine tested active serial, other sizes are not sure. 

Normally people use Micron part, but not guarantee to work, might need some setting or manual tweaking around. Spend money and time to test, I don't think official support will spend to try out other vendors compatibility.  EPCQ-L got no other method, it is BGA and not able to do manual soldering. But I always have an idea in mind to perhaps put a resistor between chip to socket to lower that 3.3V to 1.8V which fulfill EPCQ-L electrical properties meanwhile soldering is possible now because resistors exist, it is an idea never tried out that need R&D motivation and afford money of spoil thing.

[Altera_Forum]

most other vendors offer the EPCQ-L equivalents (1.8v Qspi flash) in several packages, sometime 5! (ISSI, Micron, ...): SOP16, FGBA24, WSON, etc... 

So I think using SOIC/SOP package for testing is ok, then you can pick (or not) another package for production. But then you still have to pick "random" parts and test them. And at least Micron part is not easy to find in SOP package. So we should get at least some guidance from Altera !

[FatEs]

As EPCQ-L256 replacement for Arria 10GX in ASx4, I have tested:

 - Cypress/Spansion S25FS256 => not working

- ISSI IS25WP256 => not working

both are missing an instruction

- Micron MT25QL256 => works ! I think it even worked without disabling epcs id check.

wson or soic16 packages are great for manual testing/soldering !