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This is true, but FPGAs can still only handle relatively simple algorithms. FPGAs make certain kinds of tasks nearly trivial (think truly parallel tasks such a
by brownegg 16y ago
This is true, but FPGAs can still only handle relatively simple algorithms. FPGAs make certain kinds of tasks nearly trivial (think truly parallel tasks such as decoding market data for different instruments), but there's just not enough gates (in most cases) to do interesting stuff in the application / logic layer.
FPGAs canonical use case is still as very fast codecs. There are exceptions, but they're really only the very simplest of arbitrage strategies. And in order to make those work you need top-of-the-line network gear and engineers as well.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Nrsolis 16y agoWow. This is almost entirely wrong. Any modern FPGA (hint: the Virtex-5 they are using in these machines) can implement a relatively complex general purpose CPU. It wont be a Pentium 4, but it can be complex enough to run programs you'd need to design your own compiler for. Of course, they only ever use the IP cores that they need to implement the algorithm they want. That usually means modeling the limit order book. Monte Carlo, anyone?
- swah 16y agoBut a Virtex 5 could hold several simple CPUs designed for this task ;) I don't know if the algorithms they use can be expressed easily as state machines though.