Daniel Wisehart

ASIC development has traditionally been the domain of the largest firms. Open-source design tools and process design kits (PDKs) are making it possible for financial trading firms of any size to explore custom silicon—without multimillion-dollar investments.

Software development organizations have invested significantly in the Developer Experience (DX): tools, processes, and work environments to increase productivity, collaboration, and happiness of critical talent. But the Engineer Experience (EX) for FPGA teams typically lags that of software teams, even as the number of FPGA engineers on Wall Street continues to grow.

To stay in the game, trading firms must manage ever-growing data rates and keep their architectures competitive, whether it’s making software faster or hardware smarter. But mounting requirements for regulation, compliance, and cyber are straining resources.

To stay in the game, trading firms must manage ever-growing data rates and keep their architectures competitive, whether it’s making software faster or hardware smarter. But mounting requirements for regulation, compliance, and cyber are straining resources.

FSI software engineers have long benefited from abundant open-source projects, but firmware engineers still have few good options. This was unsurprising when the developer community was small, but now that FPGA development is widespread in finance and other industries, the time is ripe for change.