Coworker once got a 25W @ 400 MHz radio burn of their hand by accidentally setting a transmitter to high power with a small whip antenna connected and grasping it without thinking about it.
Work in the radio group of an industrial electronics company. Arcane magic, unexplained gremlins, and qualitative standard recipes that happen to work are par for the course.
Anyone less technical or unfamiliar, here's a decent visual explanation of how FPGAs are constructed.[0]
Generally, there are 5 types of resources:
1. Clocking and clock distribution
2. Interconnect and bus logic
3. Sequential logic (state)
4. Combinational logic (functions)
5. Specialized blocks that implement complex functions
It's the responsibility of the EDA toolchain to simulate and validate that an FPGA "program" will satisfy timing requirements. As the article mentions, it is sometimes possible to violate these constraints purposely when undefined or nondeterministic behavior is desired.
It's not baffling, it's the latest in business lemmings' theater: when profits are at record levels, squeeze out even more money by suppressing wages with a good round or 3 of layoffs. That'll teach those corporate employees to stay hungry and not to earn too much because the CEO and investors needs those profits.