The company Xilinx is one of the more well-known businesses in the computer industry. They began many decades ago back in 1984. Formed by three individuals, their company is in San Jose. Each of the developers was well-versed in certain aspects of electronics or computer technology. At the time, this was long before we had gigabytes or TB of storage. Very little memory was actually used.
They also needed a way to quickly configure integrated circuits. Once they were able to develop this, it really took the company to a higher level of notoriety and profitability. For example, there are many businesses that are extremely dependent upon FPGAs. You may not realize how easy these are to use. There are programming languages that are designed specifically for them.
Here is an overview of this unique company.
What You Should Know About Xilinx
This company is a business that was started because a few of the original members were interested in creating something that was very similar to a blank cassette tape. Their idea was that they could program this circuitry on their own, similar to doing a music mix tape. The technology of the time was limited to simply using transistors. As with anything, when a new idea comes out, people are going to be less than receptive. In fact, they believed that it would not work, but they eventually hired somebody that joined the team that could create one of the very first integrated circuits.
Why Were Certain Companies Not Receptive To This Idea?
There were two main reasons that people were not receptive to the idea of FPGAs. First of all, the largest semiconductor manufacturers, businesses that were making a substantial amount of money, stood to lose ground in this industry. Second, they really didn’t think it will work because, at the time, no one had ever created something like this before. Therefore, once they have their prototypes, they needed to get a VC to fund them. This came in the form of $4.5 million, and it allowed them to create the very first field programmable gate array which was available on the market by 1985.
What Is The Company Worth Now?
The company is actually worth quite a bit of money today, far more than they were worth the back then. It was because of this finding by a venture capitalist that the history of computers was changed. In fact, it is always a combination of someone with a fantastic idea finding someone that is actually intelligent, that has money, to invest in what could be a very profitable venture. That’s exactly what they were able to find, and as a result of this early work, the total assets of this company is valued at $4.7 billion.
How Did The Company Expanded In The Marketplace
It was during the late 1980s that the company began to grow rapidly. They reached a valuation of $100 million and began to expand their facility. That is how they ended up in a gigantic plant in San Jose. They needed this room because they were selling to companies including Sun Microsystems, IBM, HP, and Apple computers. Essentially, they had created a brand-new market, and once these businesses understood the value of what they were providing, they began to explode in profits. By 1996, the company was valued at over half $1 billion. By the end of 2018, it was valued at five times that amount. Recently, they began to expand into complex programmable logic devices, a much broader type of FPGAs, plus they have many global services that they offer worldwide for training purposes.
What Will The Company Do To Expand Further?
Further expansion of the company seems to be dependent upon the market itself. For example, they are no longer creating anything new. They are simply making what they have much better. This means that the different computers and components that use FPGAs are becoming much more high-tech. They require a larger amount of memory, speed, and the performance levels have to outclass what happened the year before. As a result of this, you have a substantial growth potential with this company. Their only direct competitor, Intel, is not actually harming their sales. They are providing a similar component, but as you can see by the numbers, Xilinx continues to grow at a phenomenal rate.
What Industries Currently Utilize These?
Many companies have come and gone in the computer industry. Almost every single thing that we take for granted today is the result of their development of FPGAs. When you think of scientific instruments, cars, audio equipment, aerospace systems, data centers, image processing software, and numerous medical instruments, this is all because of field programmable gate arrays. The next time that you are in an ultrasound room, or if you are driving your car down the road, you will know that the FPGA is the reason that it is functioning. It was because of the original founders of Xilinx that our world was dramatically changed by this discovery that was once thought to be something that was only a bad idea.
If you look back at the humble beginnings of this company, you realize that there are three specific reasons that it became successful. First of all, it was controlled by people that were very well-versed in industries that were the same or similar to the computer industry. Second, they were able to develop their idea into a reality. This is only possible when you have a venture capitalist that is smart enough, and decent enough, to provide people with money so they can finish. Finally, this company was able to expand rapidly because it provided something that everyone needed in order to make their own products much better. When you look at things as simple as a shovel, you realize that these are needed by thousands of different businesses. In the same way, this simple component, albeit complex in many ways, is so very important with our modern directics.com electronic devices.
