Go, Stop, Yield
Dude! Where's my Chip?

Craig (not his real name) is the lead engineer on his company's most important project. So far, Craig has been worth his weight in gold (which is about $1.6M assuming $550 per troy ounce at his current weight of 2916 troy ounces). Besides working out regularly to keep those unwanted troy ounces off, Craig keeps up with the very latest FPGA technologies so he can make solid decisions in creating his company's new flagship electronic product.

This time, Craig chose a state-of-the-art 90nm FPGA as the centerpiece of his masterpiece. The product fit was perfect. Before this FPGA, there had never been a programmable logic product that could meet his price, density, and performance requirements. The selection of an FPGA, however, is what made the whole product concept work. His company could be among the first to introduce a board with support for the new standard, and they could rapidly upgrade the product in the field as the standard evolved. Furthermore, their customers would be able to upgrade to the next standard online by simply downloading a new bitstream to reconfigure the FPGA.

As soon as the next standard was stable, Craig's competitors would begin working to create a new line of boards. Craig's company, on the other hand, would be miles ahead with their products already in customers' hands and installed. It was a great market strategy enabled by a great design using the latest available programmable logic technology.
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