Last year, Xilinx Fellow Dr. Steve Trimberger gave a talk at the University of Toronto titled “The Three Ages of the FPGA.” Trimberger has worked at Xilinx since 1988—just three or four years after the company was founded—and he has seen the entire evolution of the FPGA during his tenure. Few people can claim to have the perspective that he’s earned by actually being there. His talk walks you through the three ages of the FPGA:

The Age of Invention: When the architecture of the month dominated and FPGAs were smaller than the overall system design problem. The Age of Expansion: When FPGAs started to chase after ASICs and FPGA capacity started to approach the size of the overall system-design problem, driven by IC process technology. The Age of Accumulation: When FPGA design started to embed large functional blocks including microprocessors; memories; DSPs; and leading-edge, high-speed SerDes ports.

If you want to get an in-depth but painless look at three decades of FPGA development history, this 40-minute video is an ideal place to start.