Wanted: FPGA start-up! ... Dead or Alive?

By SemiWiki

April 6, 2011

The recent announcement from Tabula about the $108 million raised in its Series D round of funding is putting the focus on FPGA technology, and FPGA startups in particular. Who are these FPGA startups, what is their differentiation, where is the innovation, in the product or the business model?

When you say FPGA, you first think: customization, “Field Programmable” means any design engineer can do it (providing he has the right tool set). Almost immediately, the two brands “Xilinx” and “Altera” come to your mind, illustrating the duopoly ruling the FPGA market. These two companies have been successful because they have been able to “standardize the customization”, by creating numerous product lines, whether low cost, or high density, or DSP centric and so on. The “Makimoto’s Wave” concept illustrates very well the expansion model of the customer specific market (ASIC, SoC, FPGA, PLD…), oscillating between customization and standardization.

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