Re: gEDA-user: 20050329 install problem

[Marvin Dickens <marvindickens@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sunday 03 April 2005 15:53, Dan McMahill wrote:

> I think its a tough thing to give any sort of decent coverage in
> a book.  One issue is there is a lot of vendor specific terminology.
> "pattern" vs "footprint" vs "layout view" for example refering to
> the physical view of a component.  Also the type of EDA flow which
> is desired or even reasonable varies _dramatically_ with the
> project at at hand.  I'm not even talking about the broad class of
> project like board design vs ic design, but rather the gory
> details of the particular project.

A good example of this is the  4-input LUT-based FPGA. Originally, this was
an idea that Xilinx implimented. Later, Altera came up with their own FPGA 
that also was a 4-input LUT FPGA. Xilinx sued Altera for patent infringement. 
Altera payed $20 Million USD to Xilinix and agreed to call thier 4-input 
LUT-based FPGAs CPLDs.

The corporate perspective is that $20 Millon USD changed hands. From a design 
standpoint, the outcome changed the nomenclature of two identical 
technologies.

Regards

Marvin