3 ms·
ASIC is expensive at low volume, but cheaper than an FPGA at high volume, so it depends on the application.
by mattbillenstein 10y ago
ASIC is expensive at low volume, but cheaper than an FPGA at high volume, so it depends on the application.
- 0xcde4c3db 10y agoFrom what I've heard, "high volume" is now so high that hardly anybody really expects cost savings from "true" (i.e. new full layout, one customer) ASICs anymore. The vast majority of "new", "custom" chips are sold to multiple customers and/or are light customizations of existing designs.
- mattbillenstein 10y agoRight, I think this has been a trend for awhile -- standard product ASICs ending up in multiple brands of similar products. Just the masks for manufacturing these large chips on the newer processes are millions of dollars -- not even factoring in all the design work to get to that point. But they achieve far higher density than you can get with an FPGA.