Costing of FPGA

 

Field-organized gate layouts (FPGAs) are in good shape for all engineer's toolboxes. Using their flexibility, engineers have used FPGAs for many years to create systems quickly or in pre-production low-volume applications. As the Internet bubble driven by communications and communications dates back to the end of the millennium, the demand for FPGA was high at the high gates at any cost. Since then, however, the requirements of the FPGA have changed dramatically. Today, as companies become more and more focused on the line of developers, engineers are looking for silicon solutions that offer both a low unit and a full system cost. While ASICs traditionally offer the lowest unit cost of any silicon solution at higher prices, increased market time pressures, increased NRE payments, and the growing need for risk reduction increase the cost of ASIC unit, preventing them from addressing project designers needs.

Today, through advances in semiconductor process technology and continuous production performance, FPGA vendors are now able to offer devices programmed at a cost of units similar to traditional ASIC. In many high-cost markets, or “price-based,” where FPGAs are not traditionally widely used due to high unit costs, FPGA solutions are now reaching the point of separation from ASICs. In fact, analysts predict that the use of FPGAs will continue to grow dramatically. With a CAGR of more than 15 percent, analysts expect that the formal logic market will almost triple in size between 2002 and 2008. Analysts also predict that this growth will be due to the rapid adoption of a planned concept within the automotive market segments and consumers. The use of FPGAs in consumer applications is expected to grow to more than $ 1B in 2008, almost ten times the 2002 revenue levels.