Does the FPGA will replace ASIC?

[FLEXcertifydll]

I think FPGA rapid develop with the market. And many application of ASIC has switch into FPGA. Now the FPGA vendors could supply low power and higher speed devices. Will FPGA replace ASIC? How do u think about it? And when will it happen?

 

[dkace]

From your description it is clear you are a digital guy!

FPGA can't replace ASIC in total since there are analog circuits that FPGA can't replace. In case of dedicated digital circuits, I do believe that it can't be replaced either.

Of course in many applications with standard I/Os and conversions FPGA can be the one-man-show IC.
But always check what the market wants and how ICs are developed.

D.

 

[jason99pan]

I think the FPGA can replace the asic in specific region. Maybe in the future, the analog circuit will be built into the FPGA. For example, transceivers, OPAmps, ADC, DAC, etc....

That is, if I just need some simple analog circuits which are built into the FPGA, and if the amount of the chip which is requested by the market is not large, I'll choose use FPGA instead of ASIC.

This is just my opinion. If I am wrong, Please correct me.

 

[deh_fuhrer]

I think FPGA rapid develop with the market. And many application of ASIC has switch into FPGA. Now the FPGA vendors could supply low power and higher speed devices. Will FPGA replace ASIC? How do u think about it? And when will it happen?

I dont think this is possible because industry is growing in every aspect so you cannot say that only FPGAs are growing (at the same rate ASICs are also growing).For large scale production nobody wants to use FPGAs, as we all know that ASIC have better performance than FPGAs.And as far as turnaround time is concerned FPGAs have the edge...
But dont ignore the fact that presently only one company is supplying 65nm FPGAs (i.e. Xilinx) but standard cells for ASICs have crossed 65nm much before that that and right now market is hot for 45nm standard cells..

 

[nxtech]

I have two things to say about this topic:

1) For God's sake can we talk about more important things than whether or not the FPGA will replace the ASIC. Think about it folks, ASIC devices will always exist. The reason they will exist is because of the price points involved in large scale production.

2) Since no has mentioned it how many of you realize that an FPGA is an ASIC. Think about it. An ASIC is a device that is reproduced many times to lower cost. It only becomes an FPGA (or CPLD) when we upload a bit file to the device to make it behave a certain way. If anyone thinks I crazy in this analysis then call Xilinx and ask them if the FPGA you bought is a cell based ASIC or not.

 

[FPGAs]

FPGA can't replace ASIC.
Because FPGA is also an kind of ASIC.

 

[forkschgrad]

you're all right. Because of economic and verification issues, some FPGAs are prototyped to ASICs and vice versa.

 

[kpsai26779]

Hi FLEXcertifydll,

only for few applications we can replace ASIC by FPGA even though FPGA s have low power and higher speed advantages.

 

[choonlle]

ASIC is a low cost solution for mass production product. I don't think FPGA can replace ASIC. FPGA only suitable to less unit product.

As a conclusion, FPGA can't replace ASIC. FPGA got pros & cons.

 

[zeeshanzia84]

only for few applications we can replace ASIC by FPGA even though FPGA s have low power and higher speed advantages

No, you are completely wrong. ASICs have much lower power consumption and higher speed as compared to FPGAs.

FPGAs are pre-fabricated chips that the user can program as per his/her requirements. There is a lot of functionality that is not even being used for a particular project, this causes a loss of power for no reason. Even if you ARE using a great portion of the programmable fabric, there is a lot of loss b/c your logic simply HAS to synthesized and implemented in a certain way. You probably could have designed much simpler and less-power consuming circuitry if you were doing an ASIC.

Also, FPGAs have programmable interconnects between different Logic Cells. All data has to go through these programmable interconnects, which considerably increases delays.

Even for the latest FPGAs, the manufacturers are only able to claim, that they will be ALMOST as fast as ASICs; while practically even around 1/10 th the speed of an ASIC would be a big achievement.

As far as price is concerned, the NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering - initial) cost of making the ASIC die is very VERY high. However, if you have a lot of chips to produce (100s of thousands), the cost gets divided and per chip cost is less.

However, if you are going to produce just a few thousand or less chips....FPGAs will be cheaper.

One other factor is time to reach market; with FPGAs this time is very less. B/c you simply have to develop the code, test it on a developer's kit (this luxury is not possible with ASICs), and have a company program hundreds or thousands of FPGAs with your code.

However, with ASICs there is A LOT of time required. There has to be much more careful checking and verification done before the design can be taped out (after all, millions of dollars are at stake); which takes a lot of time. The LAYOUT has to be optimized/designed; and then the fabricator also takes around 3 months to complete your order.

Thus, many companies now a days, initially use FPGAs in their products to capture the market...and afterwards when their product starts selling in large quantities; they order ASIC, so that they can enjoy lower costs.

 

[vamsi_addagada]

FPGA is the reprograming device
asic is the one time programing on the chip .
if u want more chip u r going to the ASIC
it is low cost

FPGA is very cost

vamsi

 

[thuyet]

altera develope their HardCopy FPGA,structured ASIC.I think it also a good thing. Log to altera website and find out about it

 

[ubna]

Fpga is mostly being used in laboratories and testing purposes.Presently it is not suitable for real-life devices and systems. I think Fpga has a long way to go to repalce Asic

 

[gbaerf]

And as far as turnaround time is concerned FPGAs have the edge...[/

Added after 4 minutes:

please eloborate more on the above point ..

Added after 3 minutes:


there is some thing called FPAA ( feild programmable analog array ) there is alot of research is going on this .... but will it able to replace analog circuit as u all told above in the above discussion.....