As usual, I voted for FPGAs.  This is not because of any FPGA family that was released this year, but rather because 2015 brought us the first open-source FPGA tools: Project IceStorm: fully open-source FPGA tools for Lattice iCE40

This is an extremely important advance since it releases FPGAs from the "silicon handcuffs" that have held FPGAs back since their creation in the 1980s.

Also, 2015 is the year that brought us a Xilinx Zynq board for much less than US$100: Snickerdoodle board on FLOSS Weekly

Zynq was introduced in 2011, but has been held back by the high cost of development boards.

Maybe these are something we could be looking at for RoadTests, is you guys would be interested in that?

Spanner Spencer wrote:

 

Maybe these are something we could be looking at for RoadTests, is you guys would be interested in that?

One thing I'd really like is to have the http://www.element14.com/community/groups/fpga-group back on the Topics tab at the top of the page.  The other nominated tech topics are all there in one form or another. 

I am interested and don't

I have worked in past a couple of years ago on FPGA and what has wondered me was the incredible difference between a producer to another in the method the chips was programmed and how much in some cases this was aleatory. So I have always saw the FPGA approach very interesting and fascinating but extremely confusing by the market, the number of possibilities and versions, for software and hardware. The idea that I had was something the was almost impossible to be "expert" or at least have a good knowledge going in depth in real world applications.

Recently I saw that as johnbeetem point it is a method that is going to be widely diffused. I think also that in a non-conventional way also the great features and flexibility of the PSOC depends on an internal FPGA. This is really fascinating, near to give to the user the option to prototype something very similar to the logic of a processor. Then last in order of time I see that there are FPGA also for the commercial platforms like Raspberry PI, Arduino, etc. So it is surely very interesting at this point to make some road test and comparative analysis. My last impression is that things are coming to be more simple than was only two or three years ago.

Enrico

I am interested and don't

I have worked in past a couple of years ago on FPGA and what has wondered me was the incredible difference between a producer to another in the method the chips was programmed and how much in some cases this was aleatory. So I have always saw the FPGA approach very interesting and fascinating but extremely confusing by the market, the number of possibilities and versions, for software and hardware. The idea that I had was something the was almost impossible to be "expert" or at least have a good knowledge going in depth in real world applications.

Recently I saw that as johnbeetem point it is a method that is going to be widely diffused. I think also that in a non-conventional way also the great features and flexibility of the PSOC depends on an internal FPGA. This is really fascinating, near to give to the user the option to prototype something very similar to the logic of a processor. Then last in order of time I see that there are FPGA also for the commercial platforms like Raspberry PI, Arduino, etc. So it is surely very interesting at this point to make some road test and comparative analysis. My last impression is that things are coming to be more simple than was only two or three years ago.

Enrico