Keynote 2 — Past, current, and future of faster, cheaper, better

The Mars Pathfinder landed in the Ares Vallis valley on July 4th, 1997, and after deploying the Sojourner rover and sending back detailed panoramic color photos the mission captured the world´s attention and people´s imagination. The Mars Pathfinder development was an example of doing design quickly, at less cost and having it work better than expected (give or take a few software “glitches”). So why does industry have so much trouble doing “Faster, Cheaper, Better” in larger and more complex FPGA based systems since then? This presentation takes a journey through insights gained using different tools, techniques and methods to sort through what works, where we need to go and what the future holds. Topics covered are why ESL/HLS methods have limited acceptance, the “superman” dilemma, issues with both multi-core and RCC development, the problem with using languages (i.e. English) to describe system specifications and how software based agile and model based engineering techniques can greatly improve the FPGA development process.