• DocumentCode
    1368599
  • Title

    It's an FPGA!

  • Author

    Alfke, Peter ; Bolsens, Ivo ; Carter, Bill ; Santarini, Mike ; Trimberger, Steve

  • Volume
    3
  • Issue
    4
  • fYear
    2011
  • Firstpage
    15
  • Lastpage
    20
  • Abstract
    The paper presents the birth of the world first FPGA, called the XC2064. Xilinx and Seiko worked together to solve the whisker issue and a few others, and soon the XC2064, the world\´s first FPGA, was commercially available. It was the beginning of a fruitful relationship between the two companies. In addition to providing an additional revenue stream to Seiko, running FPGAs with their repetitive structures through the fabs helped Seiko debug subsequent generations of silicon processes and produce greater yields and lower costs for all devices it manufactured. This use of FPGAs as a "process driver" allowed Xilinx access to leading-edge manufacturing technology at Seiko and at other foundries.
  • Keywords
    field programmable gate arrays; Seiko; XC2064FPGA; Xilinx; leading-edge manufacturing technology; process driver; silicon processes; Electronics industry; Field programmable gate arrays; Integrated circuit technology; Semiconductor device manufacture; Technological innovation;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Journal_Title
    Solid-State Circuits Magazine, IEEE
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • ISSN
    1943-0582
  • Type

    jour

  • DOI
    10.1109/MSSC.2011.942449
  • Filename
    6069771