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Technology Stocks : Xilinx (XLNX)
XLNX 194.920.0%Feb 14 4:00 PM EST
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To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (2128)12/9/1998 4:00:00 PM
From: Bilow  Read Replies (2) of 3291
 
Hi Skeeter Bug; Regarding FPGAs versus ASICs... ASICs are almost always better than FPGAs except that they have higher NREs. So for high volume, ASICs rule now and will always rule.

(An exception would be a severely pad-limited design. In that case, the extra silicon that FPGAs use doesn't matter, and the FPGA will be cheaper than custom parts. But this only applies to severely pad limited designs. Pad limited designs that aren't speed limited can be migrated to an older, less expensive process with larger feature sizes.)

I just took a good look at the latest XLNX Virtex parts for the first time. They are so much better than ALTR that there really isn't a comparison. The place I'm consulting at has been an ALTR house for about 5 years, and today they are switching over. This is being done in the face of having to switch tool sets and everything. The basic problem with ALTR is that the new 10KE parts are mostly vapor-ware, and are much slower and smaller than the parts XLNX is already shipping. The decision to switch wasn't hard to make.

I have a drinking buddy who is a field rep for ALTR. They are offering $4000 to the first guy who is able to deliver to them even a broken Virtex part. We were joking around with the XLNX representative ( Pfost at Thorson Pacific here in Seattle) about this, but he wasn't willing to supply a dead bug for this purpose.

-- Carl
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