Bitcoin mining was probably close to a best-case scenario for FPGA compute though - it was computing a fixed function designed for easy hardware implementation at full capacity 24/7. And even then, actually implementing it and making it competitive was a huge colossal pain.
It was completely compute bound. Communicating with the host using just an RS232C UART was sufficient to keep the FPGA busy while computing Bitcoin's 2xSHA256 hashes.
Re:Intel Buys Altera for $16.7B
by raverbashing on Monday June 01, 2015 @03:30PM
(#9641475)
> And that's where FPGAs shine; that small to medium volume market where small companies are doing innovative things but don't have the millions required to risk building an ASIC
I don't disagree with you on that count. Especially in this case (since for most cases a processor does a job with a better cost/benefit), FPGAs shine on very specialized/heavy computation tasks.
Re:Intel Buys Altera for $16.7B
by Sophistifunk on Monday June 01, 2015 @10:59PM
(#9643576)
Not only that, but I'd say it (could be) the best place to learn about the very bottom of the computing stack, and experiment with chip design and wacky ideas.
And that's where FPGAs shine; that small to medium volume market where small companies are doing innovative things but don't have the millions required to risk building an ASIC.