Enabler for New FPGA Companies

There seem to be a spate of new FPGA companies coming out.  The road block to new FPGA companies has always been two things, patents and software... and maybe software patents.  lol  

So what has changed?  

For sure FPGAs have been around long enough that many of the basic patents have expired.  The LUT/FF combo that is the basis for all FPGAs has been available for some time now.  Has some other fundamental patent expired more recently to allow these companies to rise from the primordial soup?  

Then there is the effort required to develop the software to design these parts.  I suppose with the various third party tools that cost has been reduced compared to starting from scratch, but it still has to cost a lot unless they are mimicking other, existing devices which I don't think they are doing, are they?  

In the last 20 years I don't know that I've seen any new FPGA companies other than mergers.  Now there are at least four newcomers to the business.  Where/how did this happen?  

-- 

  Rick C.

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On Thursday, December 5, 2019 at 10:22:50 AM UTC-7, Rick C wrote:
> There seem to be a spate of new FPGA companies coming out.  The road block to new FPGA companies has always been two things, patents and software... and maybe software patents.  lol  
> 
> So what has changed?  
> 
> For sure FPGAs have been around long enough that many of the basic patents have expired.  The LUT/FF combo that is the basis for all FPGAs has been available for some time now.  Has some other fundamental patent expired more recently to allow these companies to rise from the primordial soup?  
> 
> Then there is the effort required to develop the software to design these parts.  I suppose with the various third party tools that cost has been reduced compared to starting from scratch, but it still has to cost a lot unless they are mimicking other, existing devices which I don't think they are doing, are they?  
> 
> In the last 20 years I don't know that I've seen any new FPGA companies other than mergers.  Now there are at least four newcomers to the business.  Where/how did this happen?  
> 
> -- 
> 
>   Rick C.
> 
>   - Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
>   - Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

How are they handling synthesis?  Are they getting Synplify or somebody else to do that?  I would think synthesis software would be one of the biggest roadblocks. 

On Thursday, December 5, 2019 at 11:39:45 PM UTC+1, Kevin Neilson wrote:
> 
> How are they handling synthesis?  Are they getting Synplify or somebody else to do that?  I would think synthesis software would be one of the biggest roadblocks.

That's just a guess, but I wouldn't be suprised if they used open source Yosys suite.
It has already proven to be quite reliable tool.