Milestone-Proposal talk:Development of the Field Programmable Gate Array

Advocates’ Checklist

1. Is the proposal for an achievement rather than for a person? If the citation includes a person's name, have the proposers provided the required justification for inclusion of the person's name?
2. Was the proposed achievement a significant advance rather than an incremental improvement to an existing technology?
3. Were there prior or contemporary achievements of a similar nature? If so, have they been properly considered in the background information and in the citation?
4. Has the achievement truly led to a functioning, useful, or marketable technology?
5. Is the proposal adequately supported by significant references (minimum of five) such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books? At least one of the references should be from a peer-reviewed scholarly book or journal article. The full text of the material, not just the references, shall be present. If the supporting texts are copyright-encumbered and cannot be posted on the ETHW for intellectual property reasons, the proposers shall email a copy to the History Center so that it can be forwarded to the Advocate. If the Advocate does not consider the supporting references sufficient, the Advocate may ask the proposer(s) for additional ones.
6. Are the scholarly references sufficiently recent?
7. Does the proposed citation explain why the achievement was successful and impactful?
8. Does the proposed citation include important technical aspects of the achievement?
9. Is the proposed citation readable and understandable by the general public?
10. Will the citation be read correctly in the future by only using past tense? Does the citation wording avoid statements that read accurately only at the time that the proposal is written?
11. Does the proposed plaque site fulfill the requirements?
12. Is the proposal quality comparable to that of IEEE publications?
13. Are any scientific and technical units correct (e.g., km, mm, hertz, etc.)? Are acronyms correct and properly upper-cased or lower-cased? Are the letters in any acronym explained in the title or the citation?
14. Are date formats correct as specified in Section 6 of Milestones Program Guidelines? Helpful Hints on Citations, plaque locations
15. Do the year(s) appearing in the citation fall within the range of the year(s) included at the end of the title?
16. Note that it is the Advocate's responsibility to confirm that the independent reviewers have no conflict of interest (e.g., that they do not work for a company or a team involved in the achievement being proposed, that they have not published with the proposer(s), and have not worked on a project related to the funding of the achievement). An example of a way to check for this would be to search reviewers' publications on IEEE Xplore.

Reviewers’ Checklist

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
3. Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?
5. Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity?

In answering the questions above, the History Committee asks that reviewers apply a similar level of rigor to that used to peer-review an article, or evaluate a research proposal. Some elaboration is desirable. Of course the Committee would welcome any additional observations that you may have regarding this proposal.

Submission and Approval Log

Submitted date: 28 May 2025
Advocate approval date:
History Committee approval date:
Board of Directors approval date:

Original Citation Title and Text -- Administrator4 (talk) 28 May 2025 (UTC)

The Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), 1984

The FPGA was an integrated circuit in which Boolean logic functions and interconnects were programmed by the user. Xilinx, co-founded by Ross Freeman to productize his 1984 invention, introduced the XC2064 in 1985 with 64 programmable 4-input logic functions. Xilinx’s FPGAs helped accelerate a dramatic industry shift: "fabless” companies could use software tools to design hardware while engaging "foundry" companies to handle the capital-intensive task of manufacturing the hardware.

Expert Review #1: Andrew Wolfe -- Bberg (talk) 23:40, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
Yes.

1a. Since the citation includes a person's name, does the evidence presented support this, and is this the only person who should be so included?
The inclusion of a single name is appropriate In light of the facts included in the name justification section.

2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
Yes, very much so.

3. Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
Absolutely, as demonstrated for example in thousands of research papers, and by the thousands of products that use FPGAs.

4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?
There were other efforts to make complex programmable devices.  The discussion focuses on earlier work than the FPGA’s contemporaries, but I don't think that is a problem since the direct competitors were failures due to inadequate software and poor power characteristics.

5. Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity?
Yes, and the proposal shows this by citing many of the multitude of FPGA applications.

Short bio of Expert Reviewer
Dr. Andrew Wolfe is an Asst. Teaching Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Santa Clara University. He is an IEEE Fellow and an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Contributor whose expertise is in Computer Architecture, Embedded Systems, and Consumer Electronics. Wolfe previously served on the faculty at Princeton University and taught classes at Stanford. In addition to his academic roles, he served as Senior VP and CTO at S3/SonicBlue where he led several chip design teams and helped launch more than 30 digital audio and video products. Dr. Wolfe has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, and is the named inventor on over 50 U.S. patents.

Expert Review #2: Nathan Iyer -- Bberg (talk) 23:41, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
Yes. The citation clearly explains what the FPGA is, who invented it, and why it was important, and it covers the key facts.

1a. Since the citation includes a person's name, does the evidence presented support this, and is this the only person who should be so included?
Yes. Ross Freeman is the rightful inventor, shown on the original patent. The National Inventors Hall of Fame also confirms this. He came up with the core idea, so it makes sense to name only him.

2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
Yes. The proposal provides patents, published IEEE papers, and articles that prove the invention’s date, place, and impact. The sources seem reliable and detailed.

3. Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
Yes. FPGAs made custom chips much easier and faster to create, and opened the door for small companies to design advanced hardware and also test their product before going to mass production thereby reducing risks and time to market.

4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?
Yes. Other programmable chips existed before, like PLDs and ASICs, but they didn’t scale well or were too costly and slow to use and produce. The FPGA solved those problems and was a real breakthrough. This proposal explains this clearly.

5. Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity?
Yes. FPGAs made it easier and cheaper to design custom chips. That helped startups and engineers build things like faster internet routers, AI chips, and mobile tech. It also partially helped launch the “fabless” business model, which is now common in the chip industry. The proposal fully supports the IEEE Milestone with plenty of evidence, and shows why the FPGA has had a powerful impact. I think it meets all the requirements. I’d recommend approving it.

Short bio of Expert Reviewer
Nathan Iyer is an experienced engineering leader with a strong background in RF systems, semiconductors, and AI hardware. He holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA, combining deep technical expertise with business training. Nathan has served in senior technical and executive roles at companies such as Qorvo, Ivivi, and Adori Labs, and currently drives innovation at the intersection of high-speed photonics interconnects and AI computing. He is based in Saratoga, California.

Expert Review #3: Gary Stringham -- Bberg (talk) 23:42, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
Yes. The specific details of dates, name of inventor, product number, and other little details I haven't vouch for outside of the included sources, but overall, based on my personal experiences with FPGAs over the years, yes.

1a. Since the citation includes a person's name, does the evidence presented support this, and is this the only person who should be so included?
Yes, I believe the inclusion of a single name is appropriate.

2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
Yes.

3. Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
Yes. Back in the 1990s while employed at Hewlett-Packard, I was assigned to design and build a test fixture. FPGAs were key to allowing the small quantities of fixtures to be built without having to go through the expense and delay of an ASIC route.

4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?
While employed at Hewlett-Packard, I wrote software to control both ASICs and FPGAs. ASICs were very difficult to deal with because we could not fix any defects in them without incurring 18-month delays at a cost of millions of dollars. We entertained the idea of using FPGAs to provide fixes for the ASICs because they could be programmed as needed at the last minute.

In my test-fixture project, FPGAs allowed me to be a 1-person "fabless" shop as I was the one designing, testing, and modifying the FPGA programming as needed. I didn't need to also be a "foundry" to make the actual chip.

5. Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity?
Yes. And as stated above, I experienced the benefit personally.

Short bio of Expert Reviewer
Gary Stringham is a thought leader in designing and testing software, firmware, and hardware. He has over 40 total years of professional engineering experience, including 15 years with Hewlett-Packard’s LaserJet printer design lab, which, among other things, resulted in 12 US patents and 15 defensive articles. Based on his experience writing firmware for ASICs and FPGAs, Gary authored the book Hardware/Firmware Interface Design: Best Practices for Improving Embedded Systems Development. He is also an experienced expert witness.