Over the past twenty years, FPGAs evolved from simple glue-logic chips to complex systems-on-a-chip. This change can be viewed having distinct phases, each with different architecture, tools and methodology requirements. Are we now facing another phase change? Will FPGAs continue to evolve incrementally or are we about to see a radical change in field programmable logic? This talk traces the evolution of programmable logic based on the technological opportunities and pressures. Those pressures are changing, and the change will affect not only device architecture, but also design tools, methodology and even our business models. This talk discusses today’s technological opportunities and pressures, and how those pressures will define tomorrow’s FPGAs.

Dr. Stephen Trimberger is a 19-year veteran of the FPGA business. He received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and worked at VLSI Technology before joining Xilinx in 1988. He was the technical leader for the Xilinx XC4000 design automation software, designed the Prizm dynamically-reconfigurable FPGA, led the architecture definition group for the Xilinx XC4000X device families and designed the Xilinx bitstream security functions in the Virtex families of FPGAs. He has served as Design Methods Chair for the Design Automation Conference, Program Chair and General Chair for the ACM/SIGDA FPGA Symposium and serves on the technical programs of numerous Workshops and Symposia. He has published three books and dozens of papers on design automation and FPGA architectures. He has more than 130 patents in IC design, FPGA and ASIC architecture, CAE and cryptography. He is a three-time winner of the Freeman Award, Xilinx’s annual award for technical innovation. Dr. Trimberger is currently Distinguished Engineer heading the Circuits and Architectures Group in Xilinx Research Labs in San Jose, California.