Description

<style>.e_editor{font:14px/24px Arial,'microsoft yahei','Times New Roman','b8bf53';}.e_editor div,e_editor p,e_editor td,e_editor th,e_editor li{font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-family:inherit;}.e_editor ul{margin:-10px 0 20px;}.e_editor li{padding:5px 0;}.e_table{width:96%;border-collapse:collapse;empty-cells:show;}.e_table th,.e_table td{padding:5px;border:2px solid #eee;}.e_img{padding:10px 0;text-align:center;}.e_p{line-height:20px;padding:0 0 20px;text-indent:0em;}</style> <div class="e_editor"> <div class="e_p"> With the top two FPGA companies taking up 89% of the FPGA market, you can be forgiven for thinking there was no one else out there. Xilinx and Altera have done a good job of defending the duopoly but a few companies are gradually winning market share by targeting specific applications and sub-markets. Here is a list of the top 5 FPGA companies. </div> <strong>Xilinx</strong> <div class="e_p"> Website: www.xilinx.com </div> <div class="e_p"> Stock: NASDAQ:XLNX </div> <div class="e_p"> Market share: 49% </div> <div class="e_p"> The leader in FPGAs for many years, Xilinx has a good range of FPGAs in terms of cost and performance. </div> <strong>Altera</strong> <div class="e_p"> Website: www.altera.com </div> <div class="e_p"> Stock: NASDAQ:ALTR </div> <div class="e_p"> Market share: 40% </div> <div class="e_p"> The Altera FPGAs cover the low, mid and upper end markets with the Cyclone, Arria and Stratix series respectively. </div> <strong>Lattice Semiconductor</strong> <div class="e_p"> Website: www.latticesemi.com </div> <div class="e_p"> Stock: NASDAQ:LSCC </div> <div class="e_p"> Market share: 6% </div> <div class="e_p"> Lattice Semiconductor tackles the low-power and low-cost market for FPGAs. They market their products as the “high-value FPGAs” of the industry, providing best performance per cost. With the explosion in portable electronics, this has been a good strategy for Lattice. </div> <strong>Microsemi </strong> <div class="e_p"> Website: www.microsemi.com </div> <div class="e_p"> Stock: NASDAQ:MSCC </div> <div class="e_p"> Market share: 4% </div> <div class="e_p"> Microsemi specializes in low-power and mixed-signal FPGAs. Here are some of Microsemi’s claims: 1)The industry’s lowest power FPGA: the IGLOO. 2)The industry’s only FPGA with hard 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller: the SmartFusion. </div> <strong>QuickLogic</strong> <div class="e_p"> Website: www.quicklogic.com </div> <div class="e_p"> Stock: NASDAQ:QUIK </div> <div class="e_p"> Market share: 1% </div> <div class="e_p"> QuickLogic’s focus is on the mobile devices industry meaning ultra-low power, small form factor packaging, and high design security. Rather than selling “FPGA”, they pitch “customizable semiconductors”. </div> <div class="e_p"> I’m interested to hear from FPGA developers who have worked on Lattice, Microsemi and QuickLogic FPGAs. Share your experience with us in the comments below. What are their tools like? How do they compare in performance and price to Xilinx and Altera? </div> </div>