Quantifying and Exploring the Gap Between FPGAs and ASICs Measuring
Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have become the dominant digital implementation medium as measured by design starts. They are preferred because designers can avoid the pitfalls of nanoelectronic design and because the designer can change the design
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Ian Kuon · Jonathan Rose
Quantifying and Exploring the Gap Between FPGAs and ASICs
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Dr. Ian Kuon University of Toronto The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 10 King’s College Road Toronto ON Canada M5S 3G4 [email protected]
Dr. Jonathan Rose University of Toronto The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 10 King’s College Road Toronto ON Canada M5S 3G4 [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-0738-7 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-0739-4 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0739-4 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2009935454 c Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of going to press, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Cover design: Sue Van Duyne Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are pre-fabricated, programmable digital integrated circuits (ICs), provide easy access to state-of-the-art integrated circuit process technology, and in doing so, democratize this technology of our time. This book is about comparing the qualities of FPGA – their speed performance, area and power consumption, against custom-fabricated ICs, and exploring ways of mitigating their deficiencies. This work began as a question that many have asked, and few had the resources to answer – how much worse is an FPGA compared to a custom-designed chip? As we dealt with that question, we found that it was far more difficult to answer than we anticipated, but that the results were rich basic insights on fundamental understandings of FPGA architecture. It also encouraged us to find ways to leverage those insights to seek ways to make FPGA technology better, which is what the second half of the book is about. While the question “How much worse is an FPGA than an ASIC?” has been a constant sub-theme of all research on FPGAs, it was posed most directly, some time around May 2004, by Professor Abbas El Gamal from Stanford University to us – he was working on a 3D FPGA, and was wondering if any real measurements
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