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Or there's another alternative. The main reason it was hard to make money from the industrial etc segment - was low volume combines with a lot of support costs.

by petra 10y ago

Or there's another alternative. The main reason it was hard to make money from the industrial etc segment - was low volume combines with a lot of support costs. But what if a. xilinx built c-like tools that enabled embedded software engineers develop easily ? b. they released those freely to some segment of the market ? c. they've built an external support and IP ecosystem, either open or closed or both ? Those actions can increase margins for xilinx, and they seem to be doing a,b. As for the hardware, maybe the article is right. Also ,recent industrial chips are using 28nm, and going beyond that is extremely expensive and might not fit the industrial scenario anyhow, maybe there's not a lot of innovation left in the industrial FPGA market,

chriscool 10y ago
> Also ,recent industrial chips are using 28nm, and going beyond that is extremely expensive Yeah, so ASICs that are not produced in big enough volume will not move to 14nm or less. This means that FPGA that can move to 14nm or less, because of bigger volume, may become competitive against those ASICs.
- petra 10y ago
  When i'm saying "industrial chips are at 28nm" i mean industrial FPGA's. Will xilinx create industrial FPGA's at 14nm or beyond ? First transistor cost will have to become meaningfully lower than 28nm transistor costs. That only happens at 10nm. But at that node, NRE costs are extremely expensive. Spread over low-cost low-end industrial chips - this requires a huge volume, which xilinx probably doesn't have yet. Also couple that with 28nm being more much reliable(all the failure mechanisms increase at 10nm: electron migration from wires, thermal hot sports, transistor fin self heating), and since reliability is key for industrial - it would be hard to see industrial moving beyond 28nm.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
No, the industrial market is split between 28nm or below, 45-65nm, and 180-350nm. You can compete with fixed HW on performance, power, or flexibility. I think you're talking performance. Plenty of improvements a FPGA can get on lower nodes over 45-65nm or 180-350nm. It's actually part of how Xilinx and Altera got their market share: replacing older, low-volume parts with FPGA's on new nodes.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I think embedded software engineers will need significant... "reeducation" to be facile in FPGA. Like close to starting over. "They" don't want the external support and IP ecosystem; their behavior looks like they're still using closed-ness as an accounting virtue. FPGA tools have been so bad for so long that I just don't think there's enough executive bandwidth to truly embrace software. The economics of being an FPGA designer pretty much requires lockin. It is a lot to ask of a team.

by petra 10y ago

chriscool 10y ago

> Also ,recent industrial chips are using 28nm, and going beyond that is extremely expensive Yeah, so ASICs that are not produced in big enough volume will not move to 14nm or less. This means that FPGA that can move to 14nm or less, because of bigger volume, may become competitive against those ASICs.

petra 10y ago
When i'm saying "industrial chips are at 28nm" i mean industrial FPGA's. Will xilinx create industrial FPGA's at 14nm or beyond ? First transistor cost will have to become meaningfully lower than 28nm transistor costs. That only happens at 10nm. But at that node, NRE costs are extremely expensive. Spread over low-cost low-end industrial chips - this requires a huge volume, which xilinx probably doesn't have yet. Also couple that with 28nm being more much reliable(all the failure mechanisms increase at 10nm: electron migration from wires, thermal hot sports, transistor fin self heating), and since reliability is key for industrial - it would be hard to see industrial moving beyond 28nm.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

No, the industrial market is split between 28nm or below, 45-65nm, and 180-350nm. You can compete with fixed HW on performance, power, or flexibility. I think you're talking performance. Plenty of improvements a FPGA can get on lower nodes over 45-65nm or 180-350nm. It's actually part of how Xilinx and Altera got their market share: replacing older, low-volume parts with FPGA's on new nodes.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

I think embedded software engineers will need significant... "reeducation" to be facile in FPGA. Like close to starting over. "They" don't want the external support and IP ecosystem; their behavior looks like they're still using closed-ness as an accounting virtue. FPGA tools have been so bad for so long that I just don't think there's enough executive bandwidth to truly embrace software. The economics of being an FPGA designer pretty much requires lockin. It is a lot to ask of a team.