Quote:
Originally Posted by alphonsus
Forgive my ignorance, what's a 'hardened' FPGA? (I know what an FPGA is)
and what's an ASIC?
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A simple overview:
FPGA - Fully (re-)programmable chip (I'll skip any additional info as you said you're familiar with FPGAs).
'Hardened' FPGA (a.k.a. structured ASIC) - Similar architecture to FPGAs, lowering development costs. Closer (than FPGAs) to ASIC level performance, but none of the FPGAs re-programmability.
ASIC - Custom chip designed specifically for a certain task. Best possible performance but known to be costly to develop. Example of an ASIC? Loads of them, but as we're on an Amiga board let's pick the AGA chipset found in Commodore Amigas.
I'm sure others here can give you more in-depth information if you wish.