Chapman figured out how to manipulate multiplications to achieve multipliers with FPGA technology.

To say Ken Chapman is thrilled to be the 1993 Design Idea winner for his design "Fast integer multipliers fit in FPGAs" is an understatement. After the shock of learning he won, Chapman’s reaction was one of wonder and pride that so many people had reacted favorably to his idea. "It’s wonderful to come up with an application that people want to use," he says. The award is a nice bonus as far as Chapman is concerned, but the real excitement comes from learning that people around the world are using his design. "I’ve received two faxes from people in the United States saying they’ve used my design. It’s a terrific feeling," he says. Chapman lives in England, where he works for Xilinx Ltd.

According to Design Ideas Editor Charles H Small, the $1500 award is well-deserved. He says the amazing thing about Chapman’s design is that field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are not usually associated with fast logic functions, such as multipliers. Yet, Chapman cleverly figured out how to manipulate the multiplications to achieve multipliers with FPGA technology.

Small adds that a tribute to the ingenuity of the design is the fact that it got such a high response, especially when most EDN readers don’t use that type of technology. "This is a very specialized circuit that not every reader can use, but it got a very high vote," Small says.

Chapman’s idea arose in the same way many innovations are born: He was trying to solve a customer’s problem. The customer had asked Chapman if it was possible to run multipliers on an FPGA. Three months later, after the problem had "niggled around in [his] brain," Chapman figured out that is was possible, and came up with an idea of how to do it. Unfortunately for the customer, three months was too long to wait. But, Chapman didn’t let the idea go. "I figured I should tell somebody about it, so I sent it off to EDN," he says. He has subsequently used the idea to help other Xilinx customers.

Chapman advocates that those who come up against interesting design problems work through them and submit a Design Idea. The payoff in helping fellow designers is worth the hard work.

January 7, 1993: "Four transistors measure rms power," Joseph L Sousa of Sipex (Billerica, MA).

January 21, 1993: "Simple algorithm finds inverse Z transforms," Donald Stefani (Leroy, NY).

February 4, 1993: "Simulation technique emulates oscilloscope," Alan Wolke of AMP Inc (Somerville, NJ).

February 18, 1993: "Backup shuts itself off," Yongping Xia of EBT Inc (Torrance, CA).

March 4, 1993: "PWM circuit operates below 1V," Dongtai Liu of Videx (Corvallis, OR).

March 18, 1993: "Optical transceiver uses a single LED," Enrique G Vicente de Vera, Jesus Mari–o, Javier L—pez (Madrid, Spain).

March 31, 1993: "Fast integer multipliers fit in FPGAs," Kenneth David Chapman of Xilinx Ltd (Byfleet, Surrey, UK).

April 15, 1993: "Algorithm exchanges elements," Kamran Husain of Mentor Programming Services Inc (Sugarland, TX).

April 29, 1993: "Solid-state fuse resets itself," Isaac Eng of ESTCO Battery (Ottawa, ON, Canada).

May 13, 1993: "Dual op amp takes absolute difference," Lindo St Angel of Motorola General Systems Sector (Arlington Heights, IL).

May 27, 1993: "PLD forms adjustable pulse-width generator," Aubrey Kagan of Weidmuller Canada Ltd (Markham, ON, Canada).

June 10, 1993: "Crystal clock produces precise period," Victor Koren of Orckit Communications Ltd (Ramat-Gan, Israel).

June 24, 1993: "VCO spans wide frequency range," Einar Abell of ADA Instruments (Three Rivers, CA).

July 8, 1993: "PC printer port programs PROMs," Yongping Xia of EBT Inc (Torrance, CA).

July 22, 1993: "Active filter makes component selection easier," Michael Wyatt of SSO Honeywell Inc (Clearwater, FL).

August 5, 1993: "Decoder demonstrates elegant DSP function," Leonard Schupak of Navitech Consulting (Irvine, CA).

August 19, 1993: "User sets digital potentiometer manually," Jacek Pawlowski of INMEL (Zielona Gora, Poland).

September 2, 1993: "3A charger has overcharge protection," Chester Simpson of National Semiconductor (Santa Clara, CA).

September 16, 1993: "Linear pots generate nonlinear functions," Alex Ureche of Alcon Surgical (Irvine, TX).

September 30, 1993: "Diode implements reverse battery protection," Mark Walsh of Rogue Engineering (Arvada, CO).

October 14, 1993: "Oscilloscope electrifies optical components," Alexander Belousov of Science Instruments (Baltimore, MD).

October 28, 1993: "3f generator drives small motors," Stephen Theobald of Bang & Olufsen Technology (Denmark).

November 11, 1993: "Battery-powered adapter measures mV and mV," Larry Carr of Maxim Intergrated Products (Sunnyvale, CA).

November 25, 1993: "Charger provides 300 mA for NiCd batteries," Brian Huffman of Linear Technology Corp (Milpitas, CA).

December 9, 1993: "Power supply charges battery while carrying load," Dana Davis of Maxim Integrated Products (Sunnyvale, CA).

December 23, 1993: "Bicolor LED debugs FPGA systems,"

John Dean and Michael Epstein, Philips Laboratories (Briarcliff Manor, NY).