Once a market for a particular chip is big enough, it's much more cost effective to replace an FPGA with an ASIC (a custom silicon chip). The non-recurring cost

Once a market for a particular chip is big enough, it's much more cost effective to replace an FPGA with an ASIC (a custom silicon chip). The non-recurring cost to have an ASIC developed is often millions of dollars, so it only makes sense in high volume applications. FPGAs excel in low volume, and in products that are still being developed.