1. Purpose of the gate
The idea of a new device family, the markets it serves and the gap it fills in the vendor's portfolio are accepted, and a team is funded to define it.
Concept approval is the first commitment of money and people to a new family. For an FPGA vendor the question is not only whether a market exists, but whether a new family is the right answer to it, rather than a new member, a new grade or a new package of an existing family. A new family means a new fabric, new hard IP, a new process, new device support in the design software and a long supply commitment, and that is a large bet.
The gate does not judge the fabric or the hard IP; there is no evidence for either yet. It judges whether the opportunity is specific enough to be worth a funded definition stage, whether the vendor's existing families cannot serve it, and whether the team proposed has the mix of product, architecture, software and applications skills the definition needs.
Reviewers should leave the meeting able to say in a sentence which applications the family serves, why customers would choose it over the vendor's current families and over other kinds of device, and what it would take to supply it for as long as those customers expect.
10 more sections for registered members.