Processors and FPGAs Quo Vadis?

Electronic applications continue to demand increased flexibility, configurability, and performance, along with reduced power consumption, board space, and cost. This is increasing pressure to integrate analog, memory, logic, and soft microcontroller unit (MCU) implementations into a single-system chip. As a result, analog, microcontroller, and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) suppliers are adding configurability to their product lines. As the race to develop programmable system chip solutions heats up, field-programmable gate array (FPGA) suppliers have a leg up on the competition because programmable logic has proved to be the most difficult of the necessary technologies to master