The world of broadcast has always been a technology challenge. Consumers demand a lot from their TV programming, and they have geared up to prove it. There has been a revolution in recent years in the quality and performance of consumer video equipment, and that boom has made the consumers’ expectations skyrocket. We want broadcasters to deliver stunning quality images right to our monitors – with no glitches, delays, or quality problems. And, we want to choose from literally thousands of programming options at any given time. 

More recently, we have even begun to expect to be able … Read More → "Broadcasting Programmability"

Today we’re going into the world of imagination. Imagining what if, and then imagining what.

Is the phone ringing? Does your computer keep pinging because yet more… medical assistance is being proffered at cheap prices from overseas? Is your boss watching? These are all distractions that will hinder the process of imagining, so, if you can, let’s place ourselves in a professional setting: a cool, dark place where you can lie back and stretch out and open your mind… close your eyes… forget that I’m there in that chair next to you… ignore the … Read More → "Reconfigurable FPMA?"

In the early days of FPGAs, marketing was all bluster. In an effort to make their devices seem useful and, more importantly, bigger than the other guys’, device densities were given in terms of spectacularly optimistic “System Gates.” Just about the whole industry was complicit in this facade. Once Xilinx and Altera had gone after each other with the System Gate ruse, the other challengers really had no alternative but to fall in line.

What is a System Gate? (We hear you ask…)

Nobody really knows. Or, at least nobody who remembers is admitting it. … Read More → "The Declining Penalty of Programmability"