FPGA

From Open Source Ecology
Revision as of 21:07, 16 January 2012 by Matt Maier (talk | contribs)
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A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is a grid of identical logic circuits. They don't execute lines of code like a microcontroller. Instead, the logic circuits are connected to each other in specific way and all the logic runs in parallel simultaneously.

FPGAs are not open source friendly. The chips themselves are only made by a couple companies and each one has their proprietary tool-chain. Implementing an FPGA-based controller, in the time available, would require buying into one or more (probably one) commercial solution.