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Things have been changing - they put FPGAs in phones now: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S5+Teardown/24016 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Sams
by heathjohns 10y ago
Things have been changing - they put FPGAs in phones now:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S5+Teardown/24016 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S5+Teardown/2...
(search for "FPGA" in the page).
That's a tiny one, granted, but things are certainly getting better in that regard.
- Ductapemaster 10y agoCPLDs have been pretty commonplace in complex embedded system designs for a while. They're great for consolidating a bunch of little logic bits into a single package, and allow you to build some control logic using code rather than iterating hardware when you need to make small changes. There's huge advantages for a system like a phone where you are extremely space-constrained, and also with quick turn engineering cycles where the hardware can't go through 6 revisions before being completed. Throw a CPLD or a low-power FPGA like the Lattice ICEstorm series in there and let the HDL do the rest!
- planteen 10y agoI've also seen CPLDs used to recover from board layout mistakes.
- gibrown 10y agoThat's cool to see, although given the exploding Samsung Galaxy phone situation (probably completely unrelated) I'm not sure their engineering of power consumption/cooling is the best thing to cite. :)
- Dylan16807 10y agoA defective battery is about as far as you can get from chip design.