History and Milestones of the FPGA

This article covers the history and key development roadmap the lead into developing of the FPGA technology — starting from the initial inspection of the MOSFET transistor. It was a long journey of innovations and patents since 1957 that have made it possible to create the first FPGA.

Year 1957

Wen Tsing Chow invented what is known as Programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM), that was also called the storage matrix – it was invented for the Atlas E/F ICBM airborne digital computer. The idea was patented by him in December 27^th, 1957

Year 1959

MOSFET transistor was invented in 1959 by Dawon Kahng and John Atalla. They filed their patent for technology in 1960, and their patent was granted on August 27^th, 1963. The figure below shows first MOSFET transistor.

Year 1961

James Buie invented the Transitor-Transisor-Logic (TTL) in 1961. He filed a patent and it was granted on August 27^th, 1963. The figure below shows the idea behind TTL.

The figure above implements the logical equation of two input NAND gate using transistors.

Year 1970

On June 15^th, 1970, Dov Frohman filed a patent for what would become known as the Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM). Frohman proposed a way in which the charges and the gate of a transistor could be removed from the transistor with expose to X-ray or UV light, giving the transistor an “eraseabilty” function.

Year 1977

On February 22^nd, 1977, Eliyahou Harari filed a patent for what would become known as the Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM).  The device that was invented was the non-volatile memory that has electrical erasing capability.

Year 1977

On May 23^rd, 1977, John Birkner and Hua-Thye Chua filed a patent for a new technology called a Programmable Array Logic Circuit. The Programmable Array Logic (PAL) was composed of an array of inputs into OR gates and AND gates. The outputs to the AND gates were set into OR gates.

Year 1981

On November 13^th, 1981, Fujio Masuoka and Hisakazu Lizuka filed a patent and titled it semiconductor memory device and methods for manufacturing the same which was granted on July 23^rd, 1985. This patent identified improvements that were made on the already existing EEPROM with the introduction of what became referred to as Flash memory.

Year 1985

XC2064 is the first FPGA that introduced in 1985 by Xilinx. The FPGA is made up of Look Up Tables (LUT) which are made of SRA that are attached through interconnects which are then programmable by the user and was a revolutionary step in allow engineers to reprogram logic chip in the field. Xilinx is still a strong player in the FPGA market today.

Year 1988

The big step from PAL technology came from Altera. In the mid 80’s Altera came up with a new device, referred to as Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD). Altera’s first CPLD were the MAX5000 device which were introduced in the year 1988. The CPLDs is composed of PAL-type blocks with connections between them.

Of course, in retrospective, all the technologies mentioned above were the true enabler of the CPLD technology. Below is a general block diagram of a CPLD chip.

Get started today with FPGA design services, the richest directory of FPGA design services worldwide.