When are FPGAs preferred over microcontollers

[hobbyiclearner]

Hello there,

I wanted to know when are FPGAs preferred over micro contollers. In other words, what are the exclusive application domains of FPGAs.

Thanks,
Hobbyiclearner.

 

[shaiko]

what are the exclusive application domains of FPGAs

Maybe ASIC prototyping.
Otherwise, there're sometimes the most suitable solution but almost never an exclusive solution.

In general, FPGAs are more expensive, harder to work with and are more power hungry compared to micro controllers.

Some applications you often see them used in are:

1. High speed communication (many Gb/s).
2. Glue logic.
3. Solving problems that have high inherent parallelism (for example - image processing).

 

[FvM]

Potentially all operations that can't be implemented with microcontrollers due to lack of respective hardware interfaces.

 

[hobbyiclearner]

Potentially all operations that can't be implemented with microcontrollers due to lack of respective hardware interfaces.

Pls be specific.

Thanks,
Hobbyiclearner.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe ASIC prototyping.
Otherwise, there're sometimes the most suitable solution but almost never an exclusive solution.

In general, FPGAs are more expensive, harder to work with and are more power hungry compared to micro controllers.

Some applications you often see them used in are:

1. High speed communication (many Gb/s).
2. Glue logic.
3. Solving problems that have high inherent parallelism (for example - image processing).

What is glue logic pls. Also, if FPGAs have these disadvantages then why are they in the market and succeeding as well?

Hobbyiclearner.

 

[shaiko]

What is glue logic pls.

https://www.google.co.il/webhp?sour...04&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=what is glue logic

if FPGAs have these disadvantages then why are they in the market and succeeding as well?

These are some reasons I can think of:
1. Sometimes PCB space restricts you from using many different IC's to achieve a certain goal - So you choose to integrate all the logic on a single FPGA.
2. FPGA's are very flexible - many different (and custom) peripherals can be implemented on a single device.
3. Solution implemented on FPGA's (essentially pure hardware) tend be much more timing deterministic.
4. The availability of hardware engineers.

 

[andre_luis]

Potentially all operations that can't be implemented with microcontrollers due to lack of respective hardware interfaces.

Pls be specific.

There are applications requiring the ability of the circuit to perform almost real-time operations, such as dealing with video streaming, protocol conversions, etc...A microcontroller based system has the advantage of being easy to use, but has drawbacks such as the fetching time to get instructions microcode. In nowardays it is possible to get the best of these two words, by running softcores in FPGA, but enabling or calling instructions implemented in hardware.