SiGe process pushes reconfigurable FPGA to 5 GHz (2001) | Hacker News Reader

SiGe process pushes reconfigurable FPGA to 5 GHz (2001)

eetimes.com

21 pointsflipchart8 comments

"Another innovation is the use of differential current mode logic." Insert roll-eyes. This isn't innovation, it's bog-standard engineering trade-off, trading 50% density for an incremental gain in speed. I wouldn't mind that however.

I certainly wish them well and after 19 years it would be about time for a post-mortem. There's far to little innovation in FPGAs; Xlinx is more forcus now on hooking accelerators together and Intel has practically done nothing since they acquired Altera. Lattice Semi work on power efficiency is great, but they are still very slow.

"We reinvented ECL" in a press release. <eye roll>

Folks, the IBM Journal of Research and Development from inception to 1970 is required reading.

If you don't do that, don't be surprised when the greybeards laugh at you.

I guess FPGA tech moves pretty slowly.

I am guessing this work didn't end, its just in the dark world. I would really love to work with a 2-3 ghz dynamically reconfigurable FPGA. I wonder if we will see them in a public setting any time soon. It seems the foundation is there.

People keep trying:

http://www.pldworld.com/html/technote/FPGA-startups-stare-do...

Oh Tabula, how I rooted for thee. Note, the graph is misleading as C-switch pivoted away from FPGAs way before Tabula died.

It is remarkable how difficult it is to establish a new FPGA company. I'd say Achronix seems to be doing well, but even they had to pivot from their origin (async FPGAs)

Didn't Achronix have some relationship with Intel? I thought they bought them, but I guess not..

Actel->Microsemi->Microchip is still going. Their PolarFire FPGAs are competitive with Lattice for sure, seem to have better MIPI support than Crosslink.

> Didn't Achronix have some relationship with Intel? I thought they bought them, but I guess not..

They had some manufacturing agreement with Intel, but I have no idea if anything came out of it.

Edit: https://www.eetimes.com/intel-to-fab-fpgas-for-startup-achro...

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