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This Month


AMD-Xilinx


AMD/Xilinx: Chipmakers Bulk Up as AIoT Cycle Heats Up 

AMD Xilinx FPGA

Editor’s note: This is the final installment in our series examining AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx and what it means for the evolving FPGA market.

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
New computing architectures are being imagined and explored by the biggest players in the semiconductor industry, marking the acceleration of an emerging technology cycle that could put as much as two-thirds of the $600 billion market within their reach. AMD’s acquisition of FPGA powerhouse Xilinx makes it a more viable competitor in this new world.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s acquisition of Xilinx Inc. closed in February, bringing the era of the large independent FPGA vendor to a close. It also heralds a new dawn of technology integration, the possible emergence of a new CPU-GPU architecture, and the stiffening of competition among the industry’s largest chip vendors.

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AMD/Xilinx Automotive Chips Must Go Beyond FPGAs

Xinlix automotive semiconductors

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of stories examining AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx and what it means for the evolving FPGA market.

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
AMD is looking to cement its future in automotive, one of the hottest markets for semiconductor companies armed with high-performance computing platforms today. Xilinx’s extensive contacts with Tier Ones and OEMs can help, but AMD needs a lot more – including a long-term commitment and a product road map that melds its embedded experience with Xilinx’s FPGAs.     

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Just What is an FPGA, Anyway?

FPGA primer

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories examining AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx and what it means for the evolving FPGA market.

By Ron Wilson

What’s at stake?

Both Intel and AMD have invested heavily to own a leading FPGA company. Setting aside relatively small embedded-computing and communications/networking markets, these are essentially bets on the future of the FPGA as a key partner for the CPU chip in data center servers. But unless major challenges in accessibility to software programmers and in device management are overcome, the partnership may not happen.

To appreciate why AMD would be so interested in FPGA vendor Xilinx — or for that matter, what Intel saw years ago in Altera — it helps to have some idea of just what an FPGA is, and what role the devices play in today’s semiconductor industry. The answer rests in one simple idea, unfortunately obscured by a poor choice of acronym and a lot of technical complexity. Perhaps we can untangle things a bit.

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