Total Posts: 33
Joined: Apr 2009
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In our latest article (click here) we discussed the role of FPGAs in enabling a Hardware as a Service (HaaS) business model. As Moore's Law drives the prices of transistors toward zero, hardware may face similar issues to software in needing a revised business model to enable us to extract value from our real product - our intellectual property.
Do you see many applications moving toward a service-oriented model in the coming years?
Posted on 2010-01-14 17:27:58 at 2010-01-14 17:27:58
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Total Posts: 3
Joined: Dec 2009
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Kevin, I like this article. It r
Kevin, I like this article. It really got me thinking about the future. Part visionary, part warning.
I'm not so sure about the "hardware approaching zero" concept-- but maybe I'm not thinking about it from the proper perspective. Doesn't the cost of these products have a way of re-adjusting? Sort of the way memory shrinks and becomes cheaper per byte but the programmers develop new programs using more and more memory (as well as the growing capacity/bandwidth demands for pushing media content). The cost per hardware unit may be shrinking, but the product designers seem to keep jamming in larger capacities into their widgets for every new generation spin.
- John
Posted on 2010-01-14 20:47:12 at 2010-01-14 20:47:12
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Total Posts: 16
Joined: Dec 2009
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Model makes sense.
What I think you're talking about in this article is actually using the Field part of the FPGA.
There are industries that have been doing this for sometime (telecommunications certainly has), but they tend to be in areas where the boards cost a great deal because they are specifically designed not to be replaced for many years, but still need to be updated along with the software releases for both bug fixes and feature deliveries. The FPGA updates come with the SW updates and thus use the same cost model. From the customer perspective, it's really just software -- why should they care if the software is really FPGA code rather than processor code. It's the capability and support they are paying for.
As FPGAs have taken on more processing capabilities from the main processors, this strategy has become more integrated into the system design.
Cliff
Posted on 2010-01-19 14:32:09 at 2010-01-19 14:32:09
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