fpga and arduino

Hello.
Are you up for a philosophical discussion ?
If you want to generalize the possibility of using an electronic processor.
What 's your idea of approaches different from e.g. PIC16FXX or whatever and assembly?
For example Arduino or FPGA?

Is it my impression or the FPGA Technology is for a more professional development while arduino can still fit the amateur world (like picXXX) ?

In a way, you are correct. The real problem with FPGA's is the number of pins on the package. Fewer are being offered in SOPC packages. However, there are many development kits now available, which makes working with FPGA's much easier. The cost starts around $250 or so.

A microprocessor and an FPGA are rather apples and oranges, and are quite different in what they do and how they do it.

A µP relatively slowly executes a sequential set of program steps that can perform various logical steps and make decisions based upon the results of those steps. It's a very general purpose device.

An FPGA has many gates that can be arbitrarily connected to perform desired logic rapidly, but can not do all functions that a uP can perform. It is not a processor. FPGA's are often used to generate the "glue" logic that a µP needs to interface to the world, or to perform certain logic functions rapidly that the µP is too slow to do.

True enough thay are different technologies, but micro controllers are increasingly used in applications that were previously logic, and FPGA's increasingly are used to realize micro controllers.

BrownOut said:

True enough thay are different technologies, but micro controllers are increasingly used in applications that were previously logic, and FPGA's increasingly are used to realize micro controllers.

Click to expand...

Certainly you can us a micro controller to perform logic, but you can not use an FPGA to perform all the functions of a micro controller (unless it has a core micro controller built-in).

The logic resources in FPGA can be used to realize soft processors. No built in core is required.