Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [fpga]

A Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is a logic chip that is configured by the customer after manufacturing—hence "field-programmable".

The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware description language (HDL), mostly Verilog or VHDL.

References

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Why aren't FPGAs ubiquitous?

Reading about FPGAs, if I understand correctly, they are basically fully configurable logic gate circuits. Being this, one can design anything with them. One can design everything in the most customized way possible and hence, meet the same ends in…
Utku
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How can an FPGA outperform a CPU?

I hear of people using FPGAs to improve performance of systems that do things like bit-coin mining, electronic trading, and protein folding. How can an FPGA compete with a CPU on performance when the CPU is typically running at least an order of…
David Gardner
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Can an FPGA design be mostly (or completely) asynchronous?

We had a very short FPGA/Verilog course at university (5 years ago), and we always used clocks everywhere. I am now starting out with FPGAs again as a hobby, and I can't help but wonder about those clocks. Are they absolutely required, or can an…
Roman Starkov
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Cheapest FPGAs?

How cheap do FPGAs get? I know they're more expensive than microprocessors of comparable capability, but I wonder if there exist FPGAs that could contain a Microblaze soft core running Linux, while leaving gates available for implementing DSP…
pingswept
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How is ASIC design different from FPGA HDL synthesis?

I've had some experience with FPGA/HDL tool suites such as Xilinx ISE, Lattice Diamond, etc. The general workflow is writing Verilog/VHDL, simulation, testing and then programming the FPGA. I've heard a couple of people say ASIC design is very…
Robin Rodricks
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Readable and educational implementations of a CPU in a HDL

Can you recommend a readable and educational implementation of a CPU in VHDL or Verilog? Preferably something well documented. P.S. I know I can look at opencores, but I'm specifically interested in stuff people have actually looked at and found…
Eli Bendersky
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FPGA's vs Microcontrollers

I've worked on the Arduino family (specifically the Sanguino), built a few simple devices and a simple phototrope. I am thus pretty comfortable with microcontrollers - specifically Atmel's. I'm curious to know how do FPGA's differ from standard…
Sushrut J Mair
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Looking for open source FPGA hardware and dev tools

Investigated FPGA boards but cannot find open-sourced board and vendor-neutral FPGA development tools: The ORSoC manufacturer boasts open-sourcing on its website but I cannot really find strong evidence except webmastering OpenCores.org. The duo:…
hhh
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What is an FPGA?

I've seen a lot of people talking about FPGA's before and I know that it stands for field-programmable gate array but how does it work and what is the purpose of using an FPGA?
zklapow
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What is an LUT in FPGA?

I have gone through various sources... But I am not quite sure what it is.I want an and gate and the logical equivalent is two inputs feeding to one gate and for Y=AB' the logical equivalent is feeding to one not gate and one and gate. But it is the…
Muthu Subramanian
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Why is open hardware so rare?

I'm trying to understand why open hardware is so much harder to come by than software. I've tried looking around online and I couldn't find as satisfactory explanation. I understand that hardware is so much easier to keep proprietary and so much…
Caustic
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Are there any Analog FPGAs?

As I understand it FPGAs are flexible "digital" circuits, that let you design and build and rebuild a digital circuit. It might sound naive or silly but I was wondering if there are FPGAs or other "flexible" technologies that also make analog…
Ali
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RTL vs HDL? Whats the difference

What is the main difference between RTL and HDL? To be honest I searched / googled it yet people are divided in their opinions. I remember one saying that HDL is the computer language used to describe a digital circuit and when it is synthesizable,…
vvavepacket
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When can FPGA's be used and Microcontrollers/DSPs not?

I have to choose between a course on advanced microcontrollers and a course on advanced FPGA's. I have had introductory courses in both subjects, and what troubles me now is that I am already pretty good at firmware development for…
Jolle
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Why are FPGAs so expensive?

I mean compared to ICs (ASICs) with similar complexity, speed etc. Let's compare Ethernet switches to Kintex FPGAs (note that the most expensive switch from the list is circa as expensive as the cheapest Kintex): FPGAs are well structured ICs (like…
betontalpfa
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