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On my first day at work here at Xilinx, I received a voicemail from a gentleman with a distinct German accent asking me if I would call him back to discuss Xcell Journal. A day or so later, I met the man behind the baritone voice: Peter Alfke. He came all the way across campus to visit me with a copy of the very first issue of Xcell Journal in his hand.
Peter sat down and showed me the issue and told me how he and his daughter had started Xcell way back in 1988. His daughter, Karen, would bring her Macintosh into the office and the two of them would copy edit and lay out each issue. And in those pre-Internet days, the most effective way to convey to customers a message about the availability of a new data book or a new design technique or "bonus" feature in programming software or silicon was to send out a newsletter via U.S. postage.
"I come from a long line of teachers," said Peter. "So I've always gravitated toward activities that help educate people."
Back in those days Peter was in charge of the Application Engineering staff at the growing company.
That's how Xcell got its start, and over the next 20 years of publishing, it grew from a newsletter into a full-fledged magazine under the leadership of Peter, Brad Fawcett, Carlis Collins and my predecessor, Forrest Couch. Through his editorial content and his many FAE-related engagements over the last 21.5 years at Xilinx, Alfke became synonymous with Xilinx's reputation as an engineering company "by and for engineers."
And as the web became more prevalent, Peter became even more widely-known for his engineering wisdom, deep understanding of programmable logic and his ability to take complex questions and find pragmatic answers to help folks successfully see their innovations come to life in programmable logic devices.
Of course, I didn't quite understand all that in my first meeting with Peter. But I quickly grew to understand it when I went over to the cafeteria later that day and saw Peter sitting at a 4X4 table surrounded by 10 or so Xilinx employees all elbow to elbow, eating, chatting and seeming none the worse-for-the-wear (even though there were three empty and easily movable tables next to them).
 | | Pictured from left to right: Austin Lesea, Mike Santarini, Peter Alfke, Bill Pabst, & Kees Vissers. Photo courtesy of Jesse Jenkins. |
Not a shy person, a couple of days later, I asked the gents if I could join them. Peter pulled up a chair for me and introduced me to the folks at the table. I soon learned that there is room for everyone at "Peter's table" and that all you have to do is pull up a chair to take part in an eclectic, lively chat on topics ranging from various FPGA design problems and approaches to address them, world history and current events, the most economic and efficient solar panels, brushes with death in small English convertibles and inevitably single event upsets (SEU guru Austin Lesea is a regular at the table, as are Xilinx vets Bill Pabst and Jesse Jenkins).
So, a couple of weeks ago, Peter came by my cube to let me know the news: "I'm going to retire before they have to carry me out on stretcher," said Peter, with a grin on his face. At 77, Alfke —still in relatively good health and sharp as a sharp tack—is looking forward to retirement, which will kick off with a bit of travel to Europe. It'll be sad not see him every day but of course there will always be a chair waiting for him — after all it will always be Peter's Table.
I invite you to read Peter's latest lessons—his pragmatic "Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA User Guide Lite" and "Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA User Guide Lite" and join me in wishing Peter well and thanking him for his many years of instruction and mentoring.
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