It seems like only yesterday that we were talking about what great strides Xilinx had made in the world of FPGAs with its Virtex-6 family – state of the art 45/40nm process, loads of IP, super fast, targeted application focus – the whole works. Then, in the blink of a technology industry eye, they’re back at it with a completely overhauled family, dubbed the 7 Series.
Based on leading edge 28nm processes from TSMC and Samsung (hey, whatever happened to UMC?), the 7 Series now comes in 3 flavors compared to the traditional Virtex/Spartan duopoly of generations past. More importantly, it appears to finally crack the pesky FPGA nut of low power – the last bastion of ASIC supremacy perhaps. With the new architecture and intelligent clock gating schemes, Xilinx has set its FPGAs up to be viable, production-worthy components in any kind of power sensitive device – wireless, mobile, consumer ,etc. In fact, the new Artix-7 family of low-end FPGAs (to go along with Kintex mid-range and Virtex high end) will be the company’s first sub-1W device.
Xilinx talks a lot of the Programmable Imperative, and the new 7 Series will no doubt move many a fence sitter over to the FPGA camp. CEO Moshe Gavreilov boldly predicts the innovation and enhancements Xilinx is delivering could double their market. Don’t bet against him.
