FPGAs lack in dynamic reconfigurability. However, a friend of mine from the institute (now graduated and off in california) developed a bloody-fast reprogrammable chip (I think it can be arbitrarily reprogrammed in a clock cycle or so). Needless to say, this is a really wonderful toy -- they seem to want to use them for "communications processors", like modem control chips and stuff, but I can think of many more uses for them. I think they're talking about being able to ship them in a couple years -- I know I'm going to try to use whatever influence I have to get at least a development kit. Think about the potential for iteratively-improved static designs, if not for truly dynamic designs. (there is some cs theory in the area of real-time reconfigurable processors, but it's hard, not all that well explored) As well, you could always use something like this in a traditional massively-parallel codebreaking device, perhaps stepping through keys in silicon rather than in memory. Very cool toys. I want one.