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//If an application takes off, it is eventually cheaper and more performant to switch to ASICs, That's part of the FPGA business model - they have an automated
by petra 1y ago
//If an application takes off, it is eventually cheaper and more performant to switch to ASICs,
That's part of the FPGA business model - they have an automated way to take an FPGA design and turn it into a validated semi-custom ASIC, at low NRE, at silicon nodes(10nm?) you wouldn't have access to otherwise.
And all of that at a much lower risk. This is a strong rational but also emotional appeal. And people are highly influenced by that.
- duskwuff 1y agoIs this still an active thing? My understanding is that both Xilinx and Altera/Intel have effectively discontinued their ASIC programs (Xilinx EasyPath, Altera HardCopy); they aren't available for modern part families. For what it's worth, Xilinx EasyPath was never actually ASIC. The parts delivered were still FPGAs; they were just FPGAs with a reduced testing program focusing on functionality used by the customer's design.
- CamperBob2 1y agoI'd be amazed if that were still possible, in fact. Real-world FPGA designs lean heavily on the vendor's proprietary IP, which won't port straight across to ASICs any more than the LUT-based FPGA fabric will. Anyone who claims to turn a modern FPGA design into an ASIC "automatically" is selling snake oil.
- duskwuff 1y agoOh, these programs were always in-house. The offering was essentially "if you pay an up-front fee and give us your FPGA design, we'll sell you some chips that run that design for cheaper than the FPGAs". If there was ever any custom silicon involved - which there may have been for Altera, but probably not for Xilinx - the design files for it were never made available to the customer.
- esseph 1y agoIt is very possible and many vendors are still doing this. One of them was fairly recently acquired by Cisco.
- CamperBob2 1y agoAutomatic, without substantial NRE as well as active cooperation from brand X or brand A? BS.
- esseph 1y agoDid you reply to the wrong message?
- CamperBob2 1y agoNo. Did you?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- esseph 1y agoI did! :-)
- 15155 1y ago> Real-world FPGA designs lean heavily on the vendor's proprietary IP No, not always - I use no vendor IP whatsoever for extremely large designs. For ASICs is basically required to use fab IP (for physical production/electrical/verification reasons,) but that's absolutely not the case for FPGAs.
- petra 1y agoIntel/Altera still has this: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/easic.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/eas...