But FPGAs, despite being way faster than software, are only ~1/5th to ~1/10th as fast as dedicated silicon, at best, on a small scale. An Apple M1 in FPGA would

But FPGAs, despite being way faster than software, are only ~1/5th to ~1/10th as fast as dedicated silicon, at best, on a small scale. An Apple M1 in FPGA would run like it was manufactured 2 decades ago, if not worse. Plus, FPGAs get absolutely huge with terrible yields for complex work. RED Cameras have a massive, multi-thousand-dollar FPGA (crossing over $10K as a part), and it is only powerful enough to process their custom video codec and nothing else. Still cheaper than designing a custom chip for that considering how niche RED Cameras are, but absolutely stupid for anything broader. An FPGA that could run an M1 equivalent would be larger than the laptop, cost over $100K, and be slow as a turtle racing across Oregon.