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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minutePeter Alfke was a German-born electrical engineer whose work ranged from an early integrated-circuit FIFO at Fairchild to helping generations of engineers understand how to use Xilinx FPGAs. He joined Xilinx in January 1988 as employee 109, helped establish Xcell Journal, and became known for making difficult concepts—including metastability—clear and practical.
Who was Peter Alfke?
Alfke grew up in war-torn Germany and earned an electrical-engineering degree from the Technical University in Hannover in 1957. He married, moved to Sweden, and worked in telecommunications and computer design for LM Ericsson and Litton Industries. He immigrated to the United States in the mid-1960s and went on to work at Fairchild, Zilog, and AMD. EDN’s October 31, 2011 remembrance recounts this career path.
What did Alfke invent?
At Fairchild in 1969, Alfke was credited with implementing the first FIFO in an integrated circuit. A FIFO, or first-in, first-out buffer, stores data and releases it in the same order it arrived. That milestone is the clearest specific invention associated with his pre-Xilinx career.
What did he do at Xilinx?
Alfke joined Xilinx in January 1988 as employee number 109 and led its applications-engineering group. He later served as director of technical applications, overseeing technical customer support, documentation, and software quality assurance, and received the title Distinguished Engineer. EE Times’ remembrance describes his work with customers and his role in helping them find applications and functions they had not initially anticipated.
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His contribution was not designing FPGA silicon; it was helping people apply the devices effectively. Retired Xilinx CTO Bill Carter said, “His ability to take complex ideas and communicate them very clearly was really quite remarkable.” Colleagues repeatedly asked Alfke to explain product features in practical terms, and he became especially associated with teaching engineers about metastability.
How did Alfke teach and connect FPGA engineers?
In 1988, Alfke helped launch Xcell Journal with his daughter Karen to keep Xilinx users informed and share design experience. He wrote practical “User Guide Lite” articles for successive device families, spoke at conferences and seminars, contributed blogs and customer-forum discussions, and participated regularly in the comp.arch.fpga user group. The Xcell Journal archive identifies him as employee 109 and records his part in establishing the publication.
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His influence extended beyond product documentation. A participant in a contemporaneous FPGA community remembrance recalled Alfke’s “infectious enthusiasm” and his help to engineers entering FPGA design. At his final FPL conference talk, in Prague in 2009, colleague Patrick Lysaght recalled a packed audience of more than 220 academics, industry professionals, and graduate students from more than 40 countries giving Alfke a standing ovation.
When did Peter Alfke retire and die?
Alfke retired in September 2009, after 21.5 years at Xilinx. He died on July 17, 2011, aged 79, after a long fight with cancer. EDN reported that he was survived by his wife, son, daughter, and two grandchildren.
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Why is Peter Alfke important to FPGA history?
Alfke’s legacy joins a concrete early digital-design milestone to decades of technical education. His FIFO work at Fairchild is part of the history of integrated-circuit design; at Xilinx, his lasting importance came from showing engineers how to reason about and use programmable logic. He helped make FPGA knowledge accessible through articles, documentation, talks, and direct engagement with users. As Xilinx colleague Austin Lesea put it, “Peter was a scholar and a gentleman and a positive role model for any engineer who he ever met.”
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