Opinion

Since the release of the Series 7 devices from Xilinx in 2011, one member of the family is clearly dominating the others in terms of popularity: the Zynq-7000 SoC. Did Xilinx put all their marketing efforts into the Zynq or is this proof of a new trend in FPGA technology? To answer that question let me talk about why I think the Zynq SoC has been so popular. The Zynq bridges a gap in the market for high-performance, calculation-intensive devices. [Read More]

With the top two FPGA companies taking up 89% of the FPGA market, you can be forgiven for thinking there was no one else out there. Xilinx and Altera have done a good job of defending the duopoly but a few companies are gradually winning market share by targeting specific applications and sub-markets. Here is a list of the top 5 FPGA companies by revenue. Chart: FPGA Market Share by 2010 revenue in Millions of USDDescription: This chart compares the 2010 revenues of Xilinx, Altera, Lattice Semiconductor, Microsemi and QuickLogic companies. [Read More]

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. [Read More]