Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Altera -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (1358)	10/26/1997 6:17:00 PM
From: Bill Martin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2389

Re: I've searched my skull hard, and I have been unable to come up with much in the way of applications for FPGAs that cannot have the package count (and therefore the cost) reduced by going to full custom or possibly gate array. It sounds to me like you're discounting the NRE costs of designing full custom parts in the first place compared to FPGAs. I'd say the FPGA will generally produce a lower system cost anywhere that only low volumes will be produced. This might be due to rapidly changing product cycles for example. You may need to redesign your router products every year to keep up with the latest technology of your competitors. They may also frequently produce lower system costs where time to market is important. Looking ONLY at manufacturing costs you're probably right that custom chips produce lower system costs. Looking at total system costs which include costs of design time and time to market though, FPGAs are clearly cheaper to many designers (unless you're convinced that all the companies using FPGAs are all totally incompetent somehow). You're looking at only a small part of the total cost (namely the manufacturing cost) and declaring full custom cheaper. If you were correct, then ALTR, XLNX, etc., would all be out of business and obviously they're not. My apologies if I've misunderstood your intent .... Bill