New technologies instigate and old ones are annihilated, but we have lived with FPGA’s for more than 3 decades. Today FPGAs are expected to mark its presence with huge market size over its competing technologies-ASICs, ASSPs and SoCs. History tells us FPGA Market growth was restricted to only 5 - 6% till 2011. Out of ~$300 billion semiconductor industry FPGA’s share is only $4.9 billion in 2013. But this equation is going to change in couple of years. Communication-wired and wireless, data centers, consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, military & aerospace and medical applications has been pushing up the demand for FPGAs, owing to their huge advantages, greater computing speed and fast time-to market. FPGAs are finding its presence in different new unexplored applications. Collectively many such factors would propel the FPGA Market to greater heights, which would reach to $8.5 billion till 2020. The growth rate from 2014 would be at a descent pace of 7% which would increase up to 8 - 9% in next 5 years.
But who will get benefited from this growth?
Whenever we see any technological advancement in semiconductor industry the FPGA manufacturers are the first to initiate the change. The big names - Xilinx and Altera have been fighting for the first position in the market, but Xilinx till date has managed not to slide to second position. This is because Xilinx has ocean of patents and technological advancements over any other competitor in the FPGA Market. It was first to enter into the FPGA business. Having said that, Altera is not only always been a tough competitor for Xilinx but it is now challenging Xilinx for the first position in the market. According to the Analyst, Xilinx and Altera shared around ~40% and ~32% FPGA Market in 2013. But this ~72% market share of these two giants is challenged now.
We have always witnessed the failure of start-ups in FPGA business owing to many reasons. But these new start-ups Achronix and Tabula have managed to get into race by challenging the duopoly of Xilinx and Altera. This is because Xilinx has always been using the fab of TSMC for its FPGAs, whereas for Altera large part comes from TSMC and smaller from Intel. Though both of the giants are working with TSMC for 28 nm FPGAs, but both are using different variants. Moreover Achronix and Tabula, both collaborated with Intel for their 14nm FPGAs. If we analyze current situation properly we will notice that Xilinx is the only manufacturer working with TSMC for 16nm FPGA, whereas Altera is using TSMC for 22nm and Intel for 14nm. That means Xilinx would be in a great trouble if it does not make smart move unless and until they have already collaborated with any of the foundries by keeping it a secret. As two nodes difference in FPGA would create huge difference in the market share for Xilinx. In this race two more names – MicroSemi and Lattice have substantial share in the FPGA market of around 16% and 3% respectively. This clearly explicates the battleground to be far more different now, than a decade back.
FPGA Market size analysis and forecast 2013 - 2020 is done in the market research report which published by MarketsandMarkets in the month of December 2014.
But who will get benefited from this growth?
Whenever we see any technological advancement in semiconductor industry the FPGA manufacturers are the first to initiate the change. The big names - Xilinx and Altera have been fighting for the first position in the market, but Xilinx till date has managed not to slide to second position. This is because Xilinx has ocean of patents and technological advancements over any other competitor in the FPGA Market. It was first to enter into the FPGA business. Having said that, Altera is not only always been a tough competitor for Xilinx but it is now challenging Xilinx for the first position in the market. According to the Analyst, Xilinx and Altera shared around ~40% and ~32% FPGA Market in 2013. But this ~72% market share of these two giants is challenged now.
We have always witnessed the failure of start-ups in FPGA business owing to many reasons. But these new start-ups Achronix and Tabula have managed to get into race by challenging the duopoly of Xilinx and Altera. This is because Xilinx has always been using the fab of TSMC for its FPGAs, whereas for Altera large part comes from TSMC and smaller from Intel. Though both of the giants are working with TSMC for 28 nm FPGAs, but both are using different variants. Moreover Achronix and Tabula, both collaborated with Intel for their 14nm FPGAs. If we analyze current situation properly we will notice that Xilinx is the only manufacturer working with TSMC for 16nm FPGA, whereas Altera is using TSMC for 22nm and Intel for 14nm. That means Xilinx would be in a great trouble if it does not make smart move unless and until they have already collaborated with any of the foundries by keeping it a secret. As two nodes difference in FPGA would create huge difference in the market share for Xilinx. In this race two more names – MicroSemi and Lattice have substantial share in the FPGA market of around 16% and 3% respectively. This clearly explicates the battleground to be far more different now, than a decade back.
FPGA Market size analysis and forecast 2013 - 2020 is done in the market research report which published by MarketsandMarkets in the month of December 2014.
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