Editing Gate array (section)

=== Alternatives ===
Indirect competition arose with the development of the [[field-programmable gate array]] (FPGA). [[Xilinx]] was founded in 1984, and its first products were much like early gate arrays, slow and expensive, fit only for some niche markets. However, [[Moore's law|Moore's Law]] quickly made them a force and, by the early 1990s, were seriously disrupting the gate array market.

Designers still wished for a way to create their own complex chips without the expense of full-custom design, and eventually, this wish was granted with the arrival of not only the FPGA, but [[complex programmable logic device]] (CPLD), metal configurable standard cells (MCSC), and structured ASICs. Whereas a gate array required a back-end semiconductor wafer foundry to deposit and etch the interconnections, the FPGA and CPLD had user-programmable interconnections. Today's approach is to make the prototypes by FPGAs, as the risk is low and the functionality can be verified quickly. For smaller devices, production costs are sufficiently low. But for large FPGAs, production is very expensive, power-hungry, and in many cases, do not reach the required speed. To address these issues, several ASIC companies like BaySand, Faraday, Gigoptics, and others offer FPGA to ASIC conversion services.