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I'm not well versed in these things so excuse the stupid question, but is the 'code' that runs the chips somehow hard-wired into the chip essentially? I only kn

I'm not well versed in these things so excuse the stupid question, but is the 'code' that runs the chips somehow hard-wired into the chip essentially? I only know vaguely what FPGA's are from investing a little bit in Xilinx late last year, mainly because from what I read they seemed very important to AI implementation and development. What are the benefits of making ASIC's vs FPGA's? Is it a cost thing (i.e. the ASIC's are cheaper to make?)

UncleOxidant 6y ago
The advantage of ASICs is that a design implemented in an ASIC is likely going to run faster than the same design implemented in an FPGA - usually significantly faster. FGPAs are flexible, but as such you trade performance for that flexibility. Developing an ASIC design is very expensive. There's usually many thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of dollars of NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering expenses). Whereas you could put your design into an FPGA for the cost of an FPGA board (typically a few hundred dollars to a few thousand - but you'll be able to use the same FPGA board for many different designs as the FPGA is reprogrammable) and the FPGA design software (which is often given away for free or deeply discounted by the FPGA vendors). So ASICs are for organizations with lots of money. FPGAs are accessible for hobbyists. FPGAs are also often used to test out a design that is eventually implemented in an ASIC. The crypto folks have mostly moved to ASICs for the higher performance.
warkdarrior 6y ago
ASIC are more expensive to make, more performant per watt, and (a lot) less programmable.
slimsag 6y ago
I also won't pretend I know anything here, so take what I say with a grain of salt. From what I understand, FPGAs provide a software method of essentially reprogramming the actual behavior of the physical circuit to perform different tasks. This means FPGAs are (to some extent) general purpose, it's just they are programmed to provide only one purpose at a time (compared to traditional CPUs or GPUs for example). ASICs on the other hand are circuits designed specifically for your application only, they cannot be reprogrammed and must be created specifically for your algorithm.
jagraff 6y ago
To answer your first question - yes, ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) are generally hardwired - once the hardware is burned into the silicon, it can't be changed. On the other hand, FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) are, as the name suggests, reprogrammable. In order to allow this (in a useful way) FPGAs are built of a large variety of logic gates which can be connected together by the programmer to, essentially, simulate a pure hardware circuit. The tradeoff is that ASICs are (almost always) much faster at performing their specific task than an FPGA could be - I'm not sure of all the reasons, but you could imagine that there are many, many optimizations that you can do when designing pure hardware that don't transfer over to software-defined-hardware, because you have the FPGA intermediary there
jacquesm 6y ago
The chip is the code. An FPGA is reconfigurable hardware, you tell it what to become instead of what to execute. An ASIC is able to be only the one thing that the mask used to create it dictates.
ponker 6y ago
There isn't really code in an ASIC (there can be, but the more there is, the less of an ASIC it is), it's a physical configuration of transistors to accomplish a specific task. Can you change the code in a drill to make it a hammer? Not really, you can maybe screw a metal bit to the back so you can use it to bash in some nails, but it's probably cheaper to buy a new tool/ASIC.

UncleOxidant 6y ago

The advantage of ASICs is that a design implemented in an ASIC is likely going to run faster than the same design implemented in an FPGA - usually significantly faster. FGPAs are flexible, but as such you trade performance for that flexibility. Developing an ASIC design is very expensive. There's usually many thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of dollars of NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering expenses). Whereas you could put your design into an FPGA for the cost of an FPGA board (typically a few hundred dollars to a few thousand - but you'll be able to use the same FPGA board for many different designs as the FPGA is reprogrammable) and the FPGA design software (which is often given away for free or deeply discounted by the FPGA vendors). So ASICs are for organizations with lots of money. FPGAs are accessible for hobbyists. FPGAs are also often used to test out a design that is eventually implemented in an ASIC. The crypto folks have mostly moved to ASICs for the higher performance.

warkdarrior 6y ago

ASIC are more expensive to make, more performant per watt, and (a lot) less programmable.

slimsag 6y ago

I also won't pretend I know anything here, so take what I say with a grain of salt. From what I understand, FPGAs provide a software method of essentially reprogramming the actual behavior of the physical circuit to perform different tasks. This means FPGAs are (to some extent) general purpose, it's just they are programmed to provide only one purpose at a time (compared to traditional CPUs or GPUs for example). ASICs on the other hand are circuits designed specifically for your application only, they cannot be reprogrammed and must be created specifically for your algorithm.

jagraff 6y ago

To answer your first question - yes, ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) are generally hardwired - once the hardware is burned into the silicon, it can't be changed. On the other hand, FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) are, as the name suggests, reprogrammable. In order to allow this (in a useful way) FPGAs are built of a large variety of logic gates which can be connected together by the programmer to, essentially, simulate a pure hardware circuit. The tradeoff is that ASICs are (almost always) much faster at performing their specific task than an FPGA could be - I'm not sure of all the reasons, but you could imagine that there are many, many optimizations that you can do when designing pure hardware that don't transfer over to software-defined-hardware, because you have the FPGA intermediary there

jacquesm 6y ago

The chip is the code. An FPGA is reconfigurable hardware, you tell it what to become instead of what to execute. An ASIC is able to be only the one thing that the mask used to create it dictates.

ponker 6y ago

There isn't really code in an ASIC (there can be, but the more there is, the less of an ASIC it is), it's a physical configuration of transistors to accomplish a specific task. Can you change the code in a drill to make it a hammer? Not really, you can maybe screw a metal bit to the back so you can use it to bash in some nails, but it's probably cheaper to buy a new tool/ASIC.