This last short chapter may look like an afterthought. In a way it is. Given that many of the articles in this book have a historical perspective, I wanted to end with a topic that was clearly forward-looking. Embedded software is a very "fashion conscious" business: new ideas come and go. Some new things take root and become part of the culture (like C ++ ); others fade away. At the time of writing, many exciting technologies are getting a lot of attention UML and Eclipse, for example, both of which get some coverage in this book. But I figured programmable logic might be fitting. The basic technology has been around for quite some time, but its significance to embedded systems is rather newer. I have a feeling it's here to stay.

I made a request to the major FPGA vendors to provide some material for this chapter, and I was delighted to get an enthusiastic response from both Xilinx and Altera. I am pleased to include articles from both companies here. (CW)