At 10:23 PM +0100 2003/09/15, Jonathan Morton wrote:
Sorry, as I understand it Deep Crack was built using ASICs - that's
pure custom silicon, not FPGAs.
You are probably correct. That would explain why the chips were
marked "Deep Crack" on the board, something I couldn't figure out
previously.
FPGAs are a more recent development
and are much cheaper than ASIC design, assuming your intended task
is not excessively complex.
I would expect FPGAs to be nearly as powerful as ASICs, since
you're basically building the same kind of custom circuit designs
that you'd want to be using anyway. The difference is that ASICs are
"programmed" via the mask that is used to perform the
photolithography, whereas the FPGAs can be programmed in the field to
any circuit you want.
The transistor count on FPGAs is lower than on ASICs, but it is
still many orders of magnitude better than what you can get in
software on general-purpose machines. See
<http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/04/1526226&mode=thread&tid=106>
and
<http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/19/2229238&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=127&tid=137&tid=156&tid=186>
for two higher-profile examples from relatively recent memory.
--
Brad Knowles, <brad(_dot_)knowles(_at_)skynet(_dot_)be>
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.
GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E-(---) W+++(--) N+
!w--- O- M++ V PS++(+++) PE- Y+(++) PGP>+++ t+(+++) 5++(+++) X++(+++) R+(+++)
tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++)
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