Lattice CEO reveals growth strategy
Now, following the SLRP, his and the company’s focus is on the low to mid-range FPGA market, stating that Lattice isn’t going to enter the ‘Arms Race’ for high end FPGAs that Xilinx and Altera currently dominate, despite Billerbeck’s own market projections showing the market for high end FPGAs will exhibit the highest growth.
This spells further success for the big two, allowing Lattice to ‘stay below their radar’ in the low and mid range. However, here too the projected growth is lower than that for power management solutions, an area where Lattice currently has some compelling offers.
Billerbeck stated that he wants to double the number of products currently offered by Lattice over the next three years, by adopting a ‘core and derivatives’ approach to new product development. Billerbeck also feels the company could take the market lead in the low-end FPGA area this year, while it still only has less than 10% of the market for mid-range products.
Part of the new strategy will be to drive down the power and cost of its products. It aims to offer products that are half the power and half the cost of the competitions’, allowing it to increase its market share.
The strategy also demands that more of the company’s R&D budget be spent on software tools; currently it’s one third but Billerbeck wants it to reach two thirds within five years. Also, the company will,in future, procure more of its non-differentiating IP from third parties, as opposed to developing everything in house, an approach that hasn’t helped the company’s competitiveness in the past.
Part of the strategy is to reposition the company as a programmable platform provider, but Billerbeck admits he still hasn’t seen the business case for an embedded microcontroller or microprocessor core beyond the company’s existing soft core. He stated that, while he could easily license an ARM core and integrate it, he isn’t going to do that until he feels his market is ready for it.
While Billerbeck’s strategy is to focus on low to mid range FPGAs, it seems the target applications are still in the high-end, where an embedded core would be less critical, as opposed to low to mid range applications, where an SoC based on an FPGA is likely to require an embedded core. This is reinforced by the company’s design wins within ‘major communications OEMs’, where its ECP3 family consumes lower power than the competition.
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
