What's Time to a Pig?
FPGA at the End of 2004

The efficiency expert stopped several mornings in a row on his commute into the city, pulling his car onto the shoulder of the road alongside the farm with the small apple orchard. He watched in amazement, even getting out his binoculars to be sure, as the farmer carefully lifted a full-grown pig out of the pig pen, carried him down the path to the orchard, and then climbed the small step-ladder, lifting the pig over his head and waiting patiently while the pig ate a few apples from the tree. The farmer then returned the pig to the pen, picked up another sow and schlepped her down to the orchard to feed. The spectacle continued for over an hour until all the pigs had been fed and the farmer was obviously exhausted.

Professional curiosity eventually won out, and the efficiency expert decided to confront the farmer about his process. One morning he put down his binoculars, climbed through the fence, and met the farmer as he finished his feeding ritual. “Don’t you see how much time you’re wasting, and how much faster it would be if you picked the apples and brought them to the pigs in the pen?” The farmer shrugged and stared at the stranger with slight suspicion. Finally, he responded with a question of his own: “What’s time to a pig?”

Although the story has been around for awhile, it still applies this year in the programmable logic industry. When evaluating engineering options, it is particularly easy for project managers and engineers alike to underestimate the importance of time to market and to overlook technologies, tools, and IP that can get them to the finish line faster. FPGAs have long been known as the time-to-market champions, but otherwise reasonable design teams still often dismiss them, citing outdated myths about inadequate performance, insufficient density, and excessive power consumption. Here at the end of 2004, most of those deficiencies have been addressed well enough to make programmable logic an attractive option for a wide variety of applications, but the legacy of previous generations persists in the perceptions of many, causing them to choose inferior alternatives with longer lead times. Let’s take a look at the major FPGA-related events of 2004 and see if we can find a faster way to feed the folks waiting for our new designs to hit the market. [more]