An open letter to GPGPU-based embedded computing providers
Posted by John Keller
I've noticed a very strange and perplexing thing going on lately in the embedded computing industry concerning products based on general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs). Everyone wants to be the first ... well, no matter what it is -- first for this, first to provide that, first, first, first.
I know of at least three companies out there involved in nasty sniping matches over who was the first to do some sort or other with the GPGPU, and it's getting old, quite frankly.
Now the GPGPU is great technology; no argument there. It's a powerful parallel processing engine broadly applicable to digital signal processing for radar, sonar, electro-optical sensor processing and a broad range of other applications central to the aerospace and defense industry.
But I have to ask an obvious question: who cares who's first? First this, first that, biggest, best, fastest, prettiest, whatever. I care about capability and applicability to challenges that aerospace and defense systems designers have, not who's the first at anything in this market, and I'll wager your embedded computing customers feel the same way.
Let's have a competitive discussion about the capabilities of GPGPU-based devices, and how these powerful devices can help military and aerospace electronics systems designers solve their most difficult problems.
Let's restrain ourselves over who's first, and leave that argument for the bar after work.
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
