Re:Open Source Needs FPGAs; FPGAs Need an On-Ramp
by wycx on Saturday April 01, 2017 @04:40AM
(#14011212)
and here is an example of exactly that sort of application:
http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/ICALEPCS2013/papers/t...
Re:Open Source Needs FPGAs; FPGAs Need an On-Ramp
by throwayedidqo on Saturday April 01, 2017 @12:27AM
(#14010421)
Ah someone that's actually used them eh :) ? My experience is the same.
People have this impression that they're being used for all this exciting stuff when the average FPGA is because you need some multiplexing on IO lines and you're not running a RTOS. Basically using them in place of what would be software if your micro was better suited to your application
I think one of the main values of FPGAs when you need custom hardware/"glue" between other chips, because you e.g. need to connection 30 I²S connections to your application processor or need to handle multiple video streams with different formats for which no custom IC exists. That's for sure niche applications, but lots of these products reach 6digits of sales. The other usecase is when you need superhard-realtime behavior, which means things should work exactly synchronously to a hardware clock. E.g. I used it back at university for radar systems, but there are also lots of applications around telecomms, networking and audio/video processing and transmission. These are often low to medium volume products, where custom ASICs are not lucrative or updateability is required. Afaik custom ASICs also got more expensive over time through higher process costs, so you need a higher volume to justify it instead of going for FPGAs.