Last year was a tough one for a lot of companies and investors. High-tech stocks got slammed. But there were also many bright spots. Regardless of the ultimate impact of dot-com demises, the Internet continues to have a profound effect on our lives. New access technologies that offer higher speeds at lower costs have quickly transformed the Internet from an interesting tool to a strategic necessity.
Ubiquitous access continues to drive what appears to be a nearly insatiable demand for bandwidth.
This need for speed is a primary driver for OEMs and the service providers who buy their systems, but there is another side to the coin - flexibility. While a lot has changed in the last year, the laws of physics have not. Functions executed in hardware will always be faster than software. Historically, these two diverse requirements have forced designers to incorporate ASICs with embedded general purpose CPUs and RISC processors to create a hybrid design with both speed and flexibility. This changes everything.