Between The Lines

As we move into 2007, I’d like to ask for your help. One of the biggest issues I face in covering the FPGA industry is being able to tell who really has working silicon and who doesn’t; which products work well in the field and which products don’t. I recently elected Altera’s 65-nm device to EDN’s “Hot 100” for 2006 but a reader was quick to note that Altera merely announced its Stratix III and doesn’t have silicon yet. I did indeed ponder the availability issue in deciding whether to include Altera in Hot 100, but for that matter, Xilinx claims to have silicon (and announced two additional families of Virtex in late 2006) but I haven’t heard any reports from the user community one way or another about Virtex 5 use. So all things being somewhat equal on that front, I included the Altera device too. I elected both products largely on a leap of faith.

I also heard from a vendor, who will remain nameless, that was a bit dismayed I didn’t select any of their three products for EDN’s Hot 100. In 2006, the company released three new versions of their product now running on 90nm with some notable new features. All three products indeed sounded interesting and I commend the company for putting out three in a year but does moving a device to a higher process node (albeit with neat new features) and not to a bleeding edge one make it “Hot”? What is Hot?

Candidates for the EDN “Innovation award” are much easier to pick because “Innovation” has a bit clearer definition than “Hot” to me and vendors actually pay a miniscule submission fee to enter the Innovation award. The fee doesn’t account for a huge source of revenue for EDN, it actually serves a purpose in that the vendors somewhat self audit themselves. That is, if vendors don’t think their product is innovative enough to win, they won’t fork over the tiny fee to submit. What’s more, the Innovation winners are ultimately picked by a vote weighed 1/3 by reader votes, 1/3 by the EDN editorial staff votes, and 1/3 by EDN editorial board member votes -- it isn’t just up to me or another editor to pick a winner, where the Hot 100 comes straight from editor picks. Then there is the matter of only 100 slots for the Hot 100. I guess I could have picked 50 Hot technologies but that wouldn’t leave much room for the other editors’ picks and would likely mean someone else would have to whittle the top FPGA and EDA picks to a reasonable number.

But while companies may not feel their product is innovative, they of course think their product is hot enough to be on the list (especially because it is free). So does that mean “hot” is one degree below “Innovative?” Paris Hilton’s tagline is “that’s hot” and she often says it in a completely unenthusiastic way. I wonder what Paris’ views are on “Hot” vs “innovative.” Maybe Maury will agree to a consultation with Paris?

All kidding aside, to make a more informed pick however on what is hot (and what is innovative for that matter), designers please voice your opinion on my blog or if you are shy, feel free to email me if you are using a product worthy of the label “Hot” or even a product that isn’t hot. Happy 2007!