We have all seen the announcements to provide ever-increasing network capabilities within the data centers. Enabling these advances are improvements in connectivity including SerDes, PAM4, optical solutions, and many others. It seems 40G is old news now, and the current push is for 400G – things are changing very quickly.… Read More
As more than 343 people (and counting) know, we will be releasing the 2019 updated PDF version of our first book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” via handout at a live webinar. The response has been overwhelming and I want to personally thank you. The webinar will be a brief overview of the book with a question… Read More
Why does it seem like current FPGA devices work very much like the original telephone systems with exchanges where workers connected calls using cords and plugs? Achronix thinks it is now time to jettison Switch Blocks and adopt a new approach. Their motivation is to improve the suitability of FPGAs to machine learning applications,… Read More
…but ARM, Imagination, MIPS or Ceva have declined and lose market share. Semiconductor design IP market is still doing good in 2018, with 6% growth year over year. It’s half the growth rate seen in 2017, 2016 and 2015 and the growth decline is imputable to bad results from ARM, the market leader, but also from Imagination (#4), MIPS… Read More
AI, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and neural networks are all hot industry topics in 2019, but you probably want to know if these concepts are changing how we actually design or verify an SoC. To answer that question what better place to get an answer than from a panel of industry experts who recently gathered at DVcon with moderator… Read More
In 2015 Intel acquired Altera for $16.7B changing one of the most heated rivalries (Xilinx vs Altera) the fabless semiconductor ecosystem has ever seen. Prior to the acquisition the FPGA market was fairly evenly split between Xilinx and Altera with Lattice and Actel playing to market niches in the shadows. There were also two FPGA… Read More
Ever since we replaced horses in our personal transportation system, folks have been pining for cars that offer some relief from the constant need for supervision, control and management. Indeed, despite their obvious downsides, horses could be counted on to help with steering and obstacle avoidance. There are even cases when… Read More
With their current line-up of embeddable and discrete FPGA products, Achronix has made a big impact on their markets. They started with their Speedster FPGA standard products, and then essentially created a brand-new market for embeddable FPGA IP cores. They have just announced a new generation of their Speedcore embeddable… Read More
In every semiconductor related field, innovation is the name of the game. Academic, non-profit and government research has been a consistent source of innovation. Look back at the US space program, basic science research and even military programs to see where much of the foundation of our current technological age came from.… Read More
There are tectonic changes happening in the world of FPGAs. A lot has changed since their introduction in the 80’s. Back then they were mostly used to implement state machines or glue logic. Subsequently they grew more complex with the addition of high speed IOs, eRAM, DSPs, other processors and other IP. More recently though FPGAs… Read More
