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For network cards specifically it seem surprising that it wouldn't be more economical for the big three to roll out custom silicon instead of FPGA.
by zokier 7y ago
For network cards specifically it seem surprising that it wouldn't be more economical for the big three to roll out custom silicon instead of FPGA.
- monocasa 7y agoIIRC, the configurable logic took the place of the CAMs in the routing table mainly. There's cool niches where FPGAs make sense due to their on the fly reconfigurability even more than a purpose designed asic would.
- kingosticks 7y agoDo they really alter the images "on the fly" when traffic is flowing? Or do they have some situation where it's OK to stop traffic on their network interface for a short while?
- monocasa 7y agoYeah, they do. They might drop a few packets during a partial reconfiguration if a stream is still in progress, but that's bound to happen anyway on routing changes.