How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013)

Re:How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013) by simias on Monday September 24, 2018 @12:34PM (#18059071)

FPGAs have been used in the industry for decades, basically every time you need high throughput and/or very low latencies and you don't have the volume to justify making an ASIC then FPGAs and CPLDs are the way to go.

The article is not really talking about that though, it's more about having FPGAs in mainstream desktop computers. This is still far from a reality, even if Intel seems to be pushing for it.

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Re:How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013) by monocasa on Monday September 24, 2018 @12:57PM (#18059265)

I mean, I know, I've professionally written HDL for FPGAs.

My point is that back then (a decade or so ago and farther back) it was relegated to low volume, high margin products, explicitly as a replacement for an ASIC. This was due to the cost of the FPGAs.

The point of this article is that by embracing the reprogrammable nature, they'll make their way into places that in fact have the volumes required for an ASIC (which might not be nearly as big as you might think), but choose an FPGA anyway in order to reconfigure out in the field. We are starting to see this and I'm seeing fairly cheap consumer electronics positions (ie. products in the range of a hundred or so dollars) asking for HDL experience more and more in my area.

Desktops aren't the only mass platform out there.

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Re:How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013) by esmi on Monday September 24, 2018 @04:53PM (#18061341)

Keep in mind ASIC fabrication and tool prices are way down compared to 10 years ago so "cheaper than an ASIC" is a moving target too.

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Re:How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013) by snaky on Monday September 24, 2018 @12:58PM (#18059273)

Maybe the only one market segment where FPGAs aren't in wide use yet is desktop computers. iPhone 7 has iCE5LP4K inside, AWS provide FPGA-based instances, and Microsoft have even FPGA-powered NICs. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/08/azure_fpga_nics/

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Re:How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013) by hobo_mark on Monday September 24, 2018 @03:02PM (#18060391)

Most desktop and server motherboards embed small CPLDs and FPGAs for low-level stuff, like power sequencing.

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Re:How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013) by dboreham on Monday September 24, 2018 @12:53PM (#18059219)

This has been something FPGA fans have been pushing since I left college with my BsEE 30 years ago.

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