Field-programmable logic event comes to Antwerp

IMEC is set to host this year's FPL, the international conference on field-programmable logic and its applications.

IMEC is set to host this year's FPL, the international conference on field-programmable logic and its applications.

The annual conference takes place from 30th August to 1st September 2004, at the Hilton in the heart of Antwerp, Belgium.

FPL, which is the oldest and largest event focusing on all aspects of field-programmable logic, gathers top-level scientists, researchers and industry experts from all over the world for wide-ranging discussions on all forms of reconfigurability and its many applications.

Reprogrammable devices are opening up sophisticated new applications and new hardware/software trade-offs, making it a significant field of research.

For several years, IMEC has performed research in the area of reconfigurable systems.

By organising this year's conference, IMEC aims to stimulate further global research in this field.

Other major contributors to the organisation of this year's FPL are the University of Karlsruhe, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, the Kaiserlautern University of Technology, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).

FPL 2004 features an extensive program with three embedded tutorials, 77 full papers, 45 short papers and 29 posters.

Industry heavyweight Wim Roelandts, Chairman and CEO at Xilinx, the number-one supplier of programmable logic chips, will kick off the conference with a keynote on "FPGAs and the era of field programmability".

The Tuesday and Wednesday keynotes will be delivered by prominent industry luminaries Nick Tredennick, Gilder Technology Report and Mark Dickinson, vice-president of Altera's European Technology Centre.

According to Roelandts: "Programmable logic devices have rapidly become the technology of choice for a myriad of end products, ranging from cellphones, plasma displays and set top boxes to wireless basestations, even the Mars Rover".

"Thanks to Moore's Law, today's platform FPGAs are closing the gap with ASICs on performance and price with the extra competitive advantage of fast time to market, field programmability and much lower development costs".

"By all accounts, this trajectory will continue based on a positive outlook for PLDs through 2008".

"Gartner Dataquest forecasts the PLD market to grow to $6.3 billion by this time".

"The microprocessor's extraordinary success stalled progress in design methods for thirty years", says Tredennick.

"The transition from tethered to mobile systems renews interest in design methods because the microprocessor is unsuitable as the workhorse in performance-intensive, power-sensitive mobile systems".

"Reconfigurable systems will emerge as the answer".

"Thanks to lower device unit costs, and better performance, we're at a crossroads in the way field programmable logic is being used in system-level design", says Dickinson.

"This year's FPL promises to help further advance the use of programmable logic technology in new applications and new markets".

To stimulate the participation of young researchers, a new PhD Forum initiative has been launched.

The Forum, which will feature travel and registration grants, has been made possible through the financial support of the European Commission via the sixth framework Marie Curie actions.

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