FPGA CPU's

Philipp Hachtmann wrote: ... These are not prototypes - they are production machines in use around the world. But I agree, the biggest fpga's are ridiculously expensive. (but cheaper to develop and deploy than full custom or gate arrays for some/most volumes < consumer products) mmm. I'm using both right now (virtex 4 with 2 hard ppc's) and Altera with NIOS and don't think they are very fast. 400mhz is not that fast any more. And getting DDR2 memory to go over 200mhz is not really safe with most fpga's, in my opinion. The brand-X sales people's noses grow when the claim otherwise. some of the arm chips might go faster than 400mhz, but, ahem, there are issues there too, as as above, you quickly crash into the dram clock as a limiting factor. having said all that hot air, I really like fpga cpu's and am a huge fan. I have always been in love with microcode - the wider the better. And some of the medium size fpga's have enough internal ram which runs really fast... -brad