FPGA Design Becomes Mainstream
Thu, 07/07/2005 - 06:10
Design Methodologies
There have been a number of announcements recently concerning tools to ease FPGA development. Two in particular from Embedded.com caught my eye today.
The first describes a toolset that recompiles C code into an FPGA design. Many companies are struggling to define FPGA code already in terms of whether it is hardware or software, and tools like this are sure to blur that line even further.
The second is a bit more obscure, but no less indicative of the trend. This story describes a set of tools to support a Linix-integrated FPGA-based development system for mobile computing.
The key takeaway from these and similar stories is that FPGAs are not a niche specialty anymore. There have been predictions that hardware designs will someday consist of a very small number of massively-produced FPGA boards that are then programmed to function. I considered those predictions quite fanciful at the time, but now I am not so sure.
Larry Mittag
The first describes a toolset that recompiles C code into an FPGA design. Many companies are struggling to define FPGA code already in terms of whether it is hardware or software, and tools like this are sure to blur that line even further.
The second is a bit more obscure, but no less indicative of the trend. This story describes a set of tools to support a Linix-integrated FPGA-based development system for mobile computing.
The key takeaway from these and similar stories is that FPGAs are not a niche specialty anymore. There have been predictions that hardware designs will someday consist of a very small number of massively-produced FPGA boards that are then programmed to function. I considered those predictions quite fanciful at the time, but now I am not so sure.
Larry Mittag
