Designers stretched in ASIC, FPGA tug-of-war

摘要

Like well-matched rivals in a tug-of-war, FPGAs and ASICs exert an unmistakable and often contradictory pull on a design. At certain points, the field-programmable gate array lineup is perceived to have more strengths than the ASIC approach; at others, the appli-cation-specific-IC lineup seems to have the edge. In some cases, the conflict may be a draw, with the design initially using one or more FPGAs and eventually replacing some or all of them with an ASIC to lower cost and reduce system power. The final system may contain both ASICs and FPGAs to leverage the best aspects of each technology.