Many of the world’s most advanced electronic systems—including Internet routers , wireless base stations , medical imaging scanners , and some artificial intelligence tools —depend on field-programmable gate arrays . Computer chips with internal hardware circuits, the FPGAs can be reconfigured after manufacturing. On 12 March, an IEEE Milestone plaque recognizing the first FPGA was dedicated at the Advanced Micro Devices campus in San Jose, Calif., the former Xilinx headquarters and the birthplace of the technology. The FPGA earned the Milestone designation because it introduced iteration to semiconductor design . Engineers could redesign hardware repeatedly without fabricating a new chip, dramatically reducing development risk and enabling faster innovation at a time when semiconductor costs were rising rapidly. The ceremony, which was organized by the IEEE Santa Clara Valley Section , brought together professionals from across the semiconductor industry and IEEE leadership.…