Mainstream adoption of digital products, and their innate need for flexibility, will continue to be a primary driver for growth in the consumer electronics market in the foreseeable future. The overwhelming consensus among market analysts is that growth for digital-media products alone is likely to be 33 percent over the next three years. To address this vast market opportunity, manufacturers are clamoring to deliver new levels of quality and functionality, while supporting emerging-and rapidly evolving-standards and protocols.

Faced with the daunting challenge to bring new consumer products to market faster with ever-shorter life cycles, designers are seeking affordable and flexible alternatives to high-cost custom chips. Simply put, traditional ASIC and gate-array solutions no longer cut it, either technologically or economically, in a world in which mask charges have skyrocketed to over $1 million per spin.

In today's uncertain economy, programmable chips are emerging as the product of choice for myriad consumer applications, due to their inherent flexibility, performance, functionality and competitive pricing. According to Dataquest, a high-stakes battle is being waged by FPGA and ASIC suppliers for dominance in the "middle ground" for mainstream products that have $3 million to $7 million in revenue per chip design.

In growing numbers, FPGAs are becoming the optimal choice for today's consumer designs. This trend will accelerate this year with the delivery of high-density, next-generation FPGAs manufactured using the world's most advanced 90-nanometer process technology on 300-mm wafers. Astonishing economies of scale will further reduce FPGA pricing while providing greater functionality, rivaling traditional custom chips-and further closing the gap between ASICs and FPGAs.

Kapil Shankar is senior director of marketing and applications for the Xilinx General Products Division (San Jose, Calif.).