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DECISIONS, DECISIONSý

Choosing the Right Technology
by George Noveck

Start ý The Cost ý The Traps ý Take the Pick ý Logic Processing ý Software ý Whatýs Next? ý Sources and PDF

A number of articles have been published in Circuit Cellar about FPGAs. I donýt want to rehash what has already been so eloquently stated by Ingo Cyliax, Jan Gray, and others. I recommend that you go online or dust off back issues of Circuit Cellar and read up on the technical details of working and designing with FPGA. In this article, I want to focus on a different but equally important aspect of the subject.

Suppose you are the leader of a design team who has just been handed a new project. The first and most important design decision facing you is what technology to use to deliver the new product on time, under budget, acting precisely within specifications. Making the wrong choice early on can cost you dearly later. You might finish with a product not performing as it should, it may cost too much to design and manufacture, or you may completely blow the schedule and wind up too late to the market.

The bad news is that there is no cut-and-dry rule to offer in making this decision. Being creative comes along with the territory in the life of an engineer. As a team leader, an engineering manager adds more to the design creativity, like the need to make judgment calls and take certain risks. In every design process, you can hedge bets for only so long, but eventually you reach the point of no return (early in electronics design) when you must make a choice and follow through with it. The silver lining in this rather depressing scenario is that, by understanding the problems and choices available, you can mitigate the risk. In this article, Iýll discuss some of the more important pieces in the decision process to help you choose the right alternative.

THE PERFORMANCE

Everything is secondary to performance. Although the interdependence of performance, schedule, and cost cannot be separated, there is usually little, if anything, that is negotiable by the time the projectýs been handed to you. The purpose of this article is to illustrate how to select the right technology for the job, it is not a discussion of marketing strategy. So, I assume the marketing crew has defined what they want and how much theyýre willing to pay for it. As far as youýre concerned, the specification is cast in stone.

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