The Programmable Imperative

More than at any other time, global economics favor programmable chips over costly application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and application-specific standard products (ASSPs). In today's challenging economic climate, programmable platforms have become strategically essential for world-class system companies to effectively compete. The costs and risks associated with application-specific devices can only be justified for a short list of ultra-high volume commodity products.

Programmable platforms have become the only viable means for today's companies to meet increasingly stringent product requirements - cost, power, performance, and density - in a business environment characterized by spiraling complexity, shrinking market windows, fickle market demands, capped engineering budgets, escalating ASIC and ASSP non-recurring engineering costs, and increased risk.

For Xilinx, the programmable imperative represents a two-fold commitment. First, to increase performance, densities and system-level functionality, while driving down cost and power consumption, at each manufacturing process node with every new generation of FPGAs. Secondly, to provide simpler, smarter programmable platforms and design methodologies that free up engineers to focus on end product innovation and differentiation.