For years now, FPGA companies have been proclaiming that you can use their devices to create a “System on a Chip.”  We’ve seen “SoCs,” “Programmable System-on-Chip.” “SoPC,” “Platform FPGA,” and numerous other marketing-oriented, pseudo-jargonic phraseologies.

Supposing that’s true, and we want to put a “system” onto a chip.  What exactly is a “system”?

Wikipedia tells us a “system” is a “set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated … Read More → "Complexitango"

Many of us toss the process node into casual conversation, pretending we know what it actually means…  “I hear that SilBlaster is already working on a 37nm FPGA based on TSMC’s medium-K, oxide-minimized, semi-strained, anti-dielectric half-pitch.”  (If you get enough things that sound like buzzwords in there, most people will be too frightened to challenge you.)

In reality, though, most of us designing products with programmable logic are pretty well insulated from the vagaries of semiconductor processes.  When I got my first car that had four valves per cylinder, … Read More → "How Many Nanometers Do I Need?"

Over 60,000 people in over 100 countries read FPGA Journal.

Apparently, you’re one of them.

While we may be the perennial pundits of programmable logic, we don’t deceive ourselves into thinking that FPGAs are some sort of universal unification language.  We do, however, think that programmable devices like FPGAs will be one of the most important technologies in electronic design moving forward.  With the rapid evolution of the global high-tech economy, our position in the FPGA space gives us a fascinating lens through which we can observe and prognosticate about the … Read More → "Who Are You People?"