Hello all,
personally I don't think that in the future FPGAs will replace DSPs. Modern DSP processors are not designed to do only MAC operations: the border line between GPP/MCU and DSP is not so clear as in the past (just consider TI C6000 family, the DaVinci and OMAP series or Analog BlackFin processors). For few dollars you
can get a very powerful machine for what strictly concern signal processing operations (MAC) and at the same time capable to perform system control and other operations normally allocated to GPP/MCU. Think also that today use of assembly for DSP is limited to critical routines, where the maximum performances are required while the majority of the sw running on this platforms is written in C, known by almost all engineers and widely used for systems modeling and simulation before implementation on a specific platform, while this is not true for FPGA and VHDL.
The real question is not if or when the FPGA will replace DSP or vice versa: is like talking about angels gender.
The designer shall have to evaluate all possible alternatives and make his choices according to the following criteria:
- performances
- costs
- time to market
that's all.
Regards
Mowgli