A dissenting opinion on the 'programmable imperative'

By Dylan McGrath
pldesignline.com (February 17, 2010)

Xilinx Inc. President and CEO Moshe Gavrielov uses the term "programmable imperative" to describe what he sees as the alignment of market and technology forces creating a tipping point whereby FPGAs are displacing ASICs for many applications.

It's essentially an old argument with a fancy new name. Programmable logic suppliers have been arguing since the invention of FPGAs that the flexibility of the devices and lower associated non-recurring engineering costs make them a superior choice to ASICs in many applications. The counterargument goes that ASICs offer performance, size and manufacturing cost savings that can't be touched by FPGAs.

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