FPGA Gurus
Analyst Loring Wirbel covers programmable logic from an application perspective, providing a sneak peek at the vertical applications that help drive FPGA complexity, performance, and density. The blog will feature videos allowing engineers to spotlight their latest designs, along with news of products and corporate trends at FPGA vendors and the developers of third-party tools for programmable logic.
Stratix Strategy for Fifth Generation
Given Altera Corp.’s earlier statements regarding 28-nm processes and HardCopy architectures, the capabilities of Stratix V were known long before the April 19 launch of the family. Still, the justification for the 28-Gbit/sec transceivers and 1.6-Tbit/sec aggregate switching capability aims for a core transport application space that may be only a partial realization of the inherent d ...... Read More
Comments (0)NATURE abhors a nano-vacuum
Kudos to Princeton University EE Professor Niraj Jha for taking third place in the university’s Innovation Forum, recognizing research with commercialization potential. The award was described in an April 14 news release from Princeton. JJha was the developer of NATURE, a CMOS/nanotube architecture for FPGAs, which he first described in a 2006 paper for the Design Automation Confe ...... Read More
Comments (0)Parallel species search
A fascinating press release with little information showed up over the April 10 weekend, hinting at a new use of DSP-enhanced FPGAs in performing the Phylogenetic Likelihood Function, a method of determining the relationship of species in evolutionary studies. I’ve been able to figure out that this abstract describes a paper in BMC Bionformatics 2010, by Stephanie Zierke and Jason Bako ...... Read More
Comments (0)Make Way for DDR3
Any thoughts that implementation of systems using DDR3 SDRAM might be delayed by either OEMs or microprocessor developers were eliminated this week when a colleague, Gordon Kelly, reported for Smartbook Blog that Intel would support the new memory interface in its next-generation Atom. The speed of adoption of video in small platforms has accelerated the desire to support the latest memo ...... Read More
Comments (0)Keeping QPACE with quantum chromodynamics
This blog has covered several instances in the past year of FPGAs used in scalable supercomputing (oops, “HPC,” seems as though the supercomputing label is all but obsolete). One startup with roots from Convex Computer, called Convey Computer Systems, even built its business plan around FPGAs. But the use of Xilinx’s Virtex-5 in a network-management role in the Unive ...... Read More
Comments (0)Will tablets offer role for FPGAs?
I dreaded even writing this post this weekend, as it provides solace to the belief that because Apple has sanctified the tablet form-factor with its iPad, that all netbooks, smartbooks, and even smartphones might as well just roll over and play dead. But with the iPad gracing the cover of Time and Wired this week, it’s becoming difficult to ignore. Now, assuming that the iPad does not ...... Read More
Comments (3)Can FPGA vendors help ATCA's fortunes?
I wanted to point out an Actel Corp./Pigeon Point Systems press release today for two reasons: First, it’s interesting to see an FPGA vendor move upstream in any vertical market to offer better subsystem support; and second, the suite of Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture standards, which include MicroTCA and PicoTCA as well as ATCA, needs a bit of promotion if it ...... Read More
Comments (3)An uncertain 4G window
(CEVA Inc. contacted me over the weekend to point out a flaw in the original blog post, which is preserved in its original form below. Two architectural demonstrations were made by CEVA at CTIA. The LTE platform introduced by CEVA is called CEVA-XC, a processor already optimized for LTE services. CEVA showed this processor with a partner, mimoOn, and its design already has a lice ...... Read More
Comments (1)Knowing where the bread is buttered
Just last week, we gave a nod to Ed Sperling for realizing that there were bright spots in the EDA market, many of which center on FPGAs and retargetable IP blocks. Seems the EDA players realize where their future will reside. Anne-Francoise Pele reported in EE Times March 23 that Cadence Design Systems has acquired a small specialist, Taray Inc., that integrates FPGAs into a printed cir ...... Read More
Comments (4)Downstream woes of an upstream slump
Just before the great telecom collapse of 2001, companies like Broadcom and Intel used to boast about the fact that they were talking directly to public-network service providers, in effect bypassing the OEM by learning the needs of the broadband wireline service provider early. The strategy certainly made sense, as most OEMs were hollowing out and becoming little more than ODMs by another na ...... Read More
Comments (3)Half-empty, half-full, or new world?
Editorial colleague Ed Sperling may seem a bit serious in person, but he usually has a pretty upbeat way of observing the electronics industry from a high-level vantage point that alleviates panic. Mind you, I’m not talking about the “happy news” blinders that characterized the PR community in periods like the 1999-2000 pre-crash, but an ability to examine the landscape f ...... Read More
Comments (2)Into the OTN data stream at OFC/NFOEC
FPGAs have made their presence felt for years at the Optical Fibers in Communications/National Fiber Optics Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC), so it would be easy to breeze past the latest Xilinx preview of a demo at next week’s OFC as just so much puffery. But look again. As FPGAs move directly into multiplexer/transponder duties (what Xilinx calls a ‘muxponder’), th ...... Read More
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