``For the last eight or ten years, the design of FPGA logic has held the distinction of being the most intricate piece of the larger, board-level, project. As such, team leaders have usually deferred to the FPGA designers when it comes to setting schedules. However, that is beginning to change. Companies utilizing very large FPGAs, and even those using multiple, smaller devices, are starting to realize that the majority of the work is being borne by the PCB designer, who is tasked with meeting routing, timing, signal integrity, cost, manufacturability, reliability and a host of other constraints – all after being handed a database where the PCB itself has been given little, if any, up-front consideration. Device design complexity vs. board design complexity has come full circle and is settling somewhere in the middle. A recent EE Times survey suggests that while roughly 33% of companies have some mechanism to address the FPGA/PCB co-design issue today (usually with internally-developed tools and scripts), within two years that is expected to grow to 46%.``

The e.Digital team experts at both...

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