When Paul McCambridge returned from the US in 1996 to establish the European operation for California-based company, Xilinx, he knew he was embarking on an exciting venture into the future of microprocessing.
Now the managing director of Xilinx Ireland and recently appointed vice-president of Xilinx worldwide, he predicts that the company will employ 300 in its Saggart, Co Dublin plant by 2000. Xilinx has a worldwide workforce of 1,600.
The expertise of San Jose-based Xilinx which has a worldwide workforce of 1,600 as a developer and supplier of programmable logic and related software was reflected in recent results which reported a 15 per cent increase in net income from $110.4 million (£78.3 million) to $126.6 million for 1997.
The company opened its Citywest business campus plant in 1996 and according to Mr McCambridge, most of the founding team were ex-pats who joined the company because it's an exciting area of the industry to be in. "We are doing software development in the true sense, not just localisation, but writing code. This is the kind of stuff people with very good jobs in the US would bother coming home for." In the digital world, there are two types of chips, memory and logic. Memory chips like the ones those Intel designs are used to store information. Logic chips are used to manipulate the information contained in the memory, offering an option to change the chip's make-up over its lifetime.
Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs) are readymade devices that the customer, rather than the manufacturer, programmes to perform a specific function. Because the logic chip's function has not been defined, the customer can configure it to its exact needs. This level of flexibility can offer significant savings at the prototype stage of development, and a faster time to market for manufacturers who need to change production functions quickly.
While this may mean little to the consumer, its eventual practical application can best be demonstrated through the example of digital television. At present no one is really clear as to the final form digital TV will take, but as early adopters buy the first models it is more than likely they will become obsolete within 18 months, and need to be upgraded. However, if the digital TV carries a programmable chip, when the broadcasting network enhances its system it can send the latest upgrade online to the TV, where the chip will implement the latest standard.
Essentially, this technology could bring the era of planned obsolescence where consumer equipment has to be replaced every five or 10 years to a close.
According to Mr McCambridge, the speed and significance of these technological innovations has forced the engineering industry to take a look at itself. "Engineers tend to think software changes and hardware remains fixed now we are turning that thinking on its head. The primary people who have problems with this shift are engineers, I'd even consider myself a silicon chauvinist. We now have to look at changing either the software or the hardware to solve problems." Already the company's chief executive officer, Mr Wim Roelandts, has said programmable logic is "probably the biggest mental change that is going to affect the electronics industry since the microprocessor". He expects current thinking can probably come up with just 10 per cent of the technology's possibilities, and its full potential will only be realised when it is widely deployed. Xilinx is already working in a competitive market, with big companies like Altera, Motorola, Lucent and Quicklogic fighting the battle to lead the semiconductor industry into the next century.
one of the world's first semiconductor companies he saw the value of focusing on core expertise. This, he concluded, was in the development area where the value of the product lay in its intellectual property. So Today, 14 per cent of Xilinx's spend goes to research and development, and the manufacturing function is subcontracted through strategic alliances with other manufacturers and business partners.
