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DESIGNCON FUSION

by Tom Cantrell

Start ı ASSICs? ı Tail Wags Dog ı Shades of Gray ı You Only Live Twice ı Nice ICE ı Sources and PDF

DesignCon 2001 was its usual mixed bag this year, literally. Thatıs because the conference is uniquely comprised of a lash-up of four smaller niche shows: System-on-Chip, High-Performance Design, Wireless and Optical Broadband Design, and IP World Forum. Furthermore, thereıs a fair amount of overlap between the sub-shows, complicated by the fact that they also morph from year to year in response to the shifting winds of technology and markets.

Needless to say, this makes the conference program diverse. Although management does its best to organize the sessions along the four tracks, you really need to look at the whole program to make sure something youıre interested in isnıt overlooked.

In a no-deadline world, Iıd love to sit through such sessions as "Design Analyses for Broadband, Non-Interfering, and Multiple Access RF Communications Links from User Terminals to Comsat Hub in Two-Way VSAT Networks."

Instead, I ended up on the System-on-Chip and IP World Forum tracks most often. These tended to deal with more topical and mainstream technologies such as FPGAs and MCUs. Make that FPGAs-and-MCUs, because the trend to combine both, and more generally hard and soft "cores," on a single chip continues to accelerate.

The action peaked in a panel called "The ASIC/FPGA Battle: Will a Hybrid Solution Win?" organized by Bryan Lewis of Dataquest. A few years ago, you would have seen a pitched battle between the panelists advocating their particular solution (i.e., ASIC, FPGA, or ASIC + FPGA).

But now it seems clear that the answer is "Yes." Panelists such as LSI Logic (ASIC), Xilinx (FPGA), and Triscend and QuickLogic (hybrid) are all pretty much driving down the same road. Theyıre just arguing over which radio station to listen to.

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