Unbelievable! FPGA Journal is running a feature article on a Xilinx organization change? What’s next, an expose on Altera’s new carpets at corporate headquarters? Maybe an in-depth analysis of Lattice’s motivation for switching from Seattle’s Best to Stumptown coffee in their cafeteria? What happened to the concept of discriminating technical journalism?

While org-chart changes are certainly not our typical subject matter, we’re not just talking about a few ambitious executives forging a path up the corporate career ladder. We won’t repeat the details from the press releases. What we’re doing here is reading the organizational taxonomy tea leaves and seeing more than just another quarterly agitation of the strategic solution. Sitting atop the industry leader’s latest announcement is a coming of age story, a tale of an industry that’s returned from its walkabout, braved its bar mitzvah, conquered its quinceanera and moved on to maturity.

No longer can the people designing systems with programmable logic fall under the single banner of “FPGA designer.” With applications spanning the entire digital electronics spectrum, the number and diversity of designers is growing on a daily basis. This is not new information to most of us. What is new is the fact that the companies that defined the industry, typically the last to acknowledge a change of direction, are gearing up to greet the new generation of customers as if they’re here to stay. DSP designers will no longer evolve into “FPGA designers.” They will remain DSP designers, but will happen to use one of the latest, most popular technologies for DSP system acceleration. Embedded systems engineers will not transform themselves into programmable logic aficionados; they will simply leverage the power of the most powerful available embedded platform in their portfolio. [more]