a techfocus media publication :: October 25, 2005 :: volume I, no. 04
| a techfocus media publication :: October 25, 2005 :: volume I, no. 04 |
ANNOUNCEMENTS
|
ARMed and Dangerous The pecking order in the playground of FPGA technology has been established for awhile now. Two big boys rule the roost. Other players quietly compete in the corners for their share of the scraps. Now, however, with the FPGA players moving rapidly into the embedded systems space, that hierarchy is bound to be challenged. Actel, one of the kids playing stealthily at the edge of the FPGA schoolyard, has made a shrewd move by buddying up to ARM, one of the biggest, strongest forces in the embedded market, and it’s not likely that anybody will be kicking sand in their face any time soon. Actel announced this week that they are now shipping versions of their previously announced ARM7-enabled, flash-based FPGAs. The Actel/ARM7 combination is a unique platform for system-on-chip implementation with the industry’s most popular 32-bit processor core. The barriers for entry into custom embedded system-on-chip technology have just been dramatically reduced, both in cost and in engineering learning-curve. When attacking larger competitors, one generally has two viable options. The first is focus. By concentrating all your energy on a specific market segment where your larger competitor gives only mediocre attention, you can carve out a niche where your smaller company can flourish. For years, Actel has successfully maintained exactly this strategy with their Mil/Aero FPGA product lines, concentrating on meeting the special requirements of that market segment. The second option is to flank the larger competitor by moving in another direction. Actel has also prosecuted this strategy with their ProASIC-3 Flash-based FPGA lines. While larger competitors jousted for supremacy in SRAM-based FPGAs, Actel flanked with their non-volatile, Flash-based technology. Touting live-at-powerup operation, single-chip solutions, and IP security, they positioned themselves as a superior alternative for certain programmable logic customers with a different set of priorities. [more]
|
||||||
LATEST NEWS October 25, 2005 Eclipse Foundation Announces Keynotes for EclipseCon 2006 Toshiba Licenses ARM1176JZF-S High-Performance Microprocessor Xilinx Announces Industry's Most Comprehensive Suite of Programmable WiMAX Solutions Xilinx and Wavesat Collaborate in Development of World's First Mini-PCI Reference Design for WiMAX October 24, 2005 Marantz Audio/Video Receiver Packs a Punch, Courtesy of Cirrus Logic's Flagship CS49520 Audio DSP Atmel Introduces Smallest Integrated 4-Channel Power Management Unit in QFN 3x3mm Actel Delivers Industry's First Soft ARM7 Family Processor Optimized for FPGAs CoreConsole Tool Simplifies Creation of FPGA-Based System-Level Designs Xilinx Delivers Highest Performance DSP Solutions for Multimedia, Video and Imaging Applications October 21, 2005 LSI Logic First to Sample PCI Express Serial Attached SCSI Controllers October 20, 2005 Virage Logic and MIPS Technologies Accelerate Processor Performance With Core-Optimized IP Kits October 19, 2005 First-Time-Ever Demo of FPGA Processing on a Serial RapidIO Device M-Systems Expands uDiskOnChip Boot and Storage Support for Windows Embedded Operating Systems Pace's DV315 eMTA Awarded CableLabs' Certifications CSR Offers Bluetooth to Grundig Mobile Portfolio Xilinx Announces Fully-Compliant Reprogrammable 802.17 RPR MAC Solution |
|||||||
All material copyright © 2003-2005 techfocus media, inc. All rights reserved. |
