Industry Expert Blogs

At the annual Linley Processor Conference this past week a number of chip vendors proposed a raft of new networking solutions directed at solving today’s bandwidth issues. Perhaps the overall highlight of the conference was the recognition by Keynote Speaker Linley Gwennap of the shift that is taking place towards ARM based solutions. As part of the conference, Xilinx and Altera presented in the afternoon of the first day in a session entitled “Implementing Networking Functions by Programming Both Logic and Processors.” While Xilinx stuck to the theme and presented a variety of networking solutions utilizing the full array of their 28nm FPGAs, Altera decided to play along with the ARM architecture momentum storyline as they detailed the benefits of their SOC FPGAs as they transition from 28nm down to 20nm. There were subtle hints at current capabilities and what can be expected out in time. All around us we are witnessing platform transitions and the SOC FPGA is another one to watch closely as it can be as dramatic as the x86 PC platform to ARM based mobiles.

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