I recently read an interesting article on Xilinx’s position with respect to its competitors: Is Xilinx Good Enough for You? As someone who works mainly with Xilinx FPGAs, I find it important to know how they are faring competitively. If one day a competitor manages to blow Xilinx out of the water, I would like to have seen it coming.
The image below was taken from Google Trends and shows Google search results for Xilinx and Altera. Clearly, search volume for Altera has overtaken that for Xilinx and the spread seems to be growing.
What about their relative financial positions? The image below comes from Google Finance and shows the stock price of Xilinx (XLNX) vs Altera (ALTR). Since the low at the end of the tech boom and bust, Altera stock has grown 300% while Xilinx has only managed a gain of 100%. Technical analysts would tell you that its a bad sign that Xilinx hasn’t returned to its 2004 high. Altera on the other hand destroyed that high. Market capital for Xilinx is 9.8 billion while Altera is 15 billion.
Is Xilinx a sinking ship? Let us know in the comments below.