The good news for DSP makers is that the market for these specialized, programmable chips has been growing at an incredible pace.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

The good news for DSP makers (and DSP analysts) is that the market for these specialized, programmable chips has been growing at an incredible pace--30% or so (in terms of units sold) per year.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

Lim approached Altera, an upstart in the then-emerging field of programmable logic chips.

FORBES: Silicon missionary

Electronic Buyers News, a trade publication, estimates that Xilinx has 29% of the market for programmable logic chips, and Altera, also based in San Jose, has about 25%.

FORBES: Chips that change their spots

As custom chips embrace programmable logic, and programmable logic takes in major blocks of components such as processors, a further intriguing possibility is emerging.

ECONOMIST: SEMICONDUCTORS: Bespoke chips for the common man | The

U.S. and Asian demand, he says, was broad-based, with particularly solid growth for analog chips, embedded controllers and programmable logic devices.

FORBES: Update: Avnet CEO Sees More Growth In Corporate IT Spending

Intel has agreed to build chips known as FPGAs, or field programmable gate arrays, for Altera, the two companies announced this afternoon.

FORBES: Intel Agrees To Serve As Foundry For Altera FPGAs

In one application, Siemens' Industry Automation division--a customer of ours for two years--is placing our chips into human-machine interfaces and programmable logic controls for industrial automation machines.

FORBES: Nanotech Meets Computer Memory

These adaptive chips go officially by the name of field programmable gate arrays.

FORBES: Chips that change their spots