The FPGA: 40 Years of Change

This is a hybrid in-person and online event. Pre-registration is required for either.
In 1984, the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) was invented at Silicon Valley startup Xilinx by its co-founder Ross Freeman. It was not an obviously good technology as it had serious drawbacks in speed, cost, power, and capacity. However, its novel design transformed the technology industry as it rode the wave of Moore’s Law. As this transformation was not a straight road, companies that did not recognize fundamental industry changes created by the FPGA fell by the wayside. If companies did not stretch to find new uses for this technology, or did not deploy its resources in building a new ecosystem, they also failed.
Xilinx’s FPGA invention led to the major industry transformation of the Fabless semiconductor model, and step-by-step Xilinx navigated this field of potential failure. These steps tell of a company growing from a hyper-lean adrenaline-driven startup to a multi-billion-dollar success story. Not every step was correct, and certainly there was some luck. However, considerable effort was required to achieve that luck, and even more effort to capitalize on it.
In this talk, IEEE Fellow Steve Trimberger will discuss change: the changing value of semiconductor scaling, the changing needs of EDA, the changing barriers to entry, the changing application of the technology, and the changing role of consultants and corporate relationships over the course of many years. These changes got us to 2026 – what change is next?
Please note that an IEEE Milestone for the FPGA will be dedicated on Thu, March 12. Information about attending its dedication online will be available soon.
Speaker(s): Dr. Steve Trimberger,
925 Thompson Place, Sunnyvale, California, United States, 94085, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/534657