open ASIC SoC

coderman coderman at gmail.com
Wed Nov 5 15:30:04 PST 2014


On 11/5/14, Cathal (Phone) <cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
> Given the difficulty of trusting auditors and ensuring they see all they
> need to see, why not push instead for crypto FPGA...

FPGAs have been used to augment computation ever since they were
developed. (i remember back in the early 90's being able to buy a PCI
FPGA add-on card for accelerated computation)

the problem is efficiency, and in a size pressured SoC design
efficiency (which in turn drives power consumption) is paramount.

not to say it isn't useful, but an FPGA processor compared to a tight,
ASIC SoC, is going to lose by an order of magnitude.

i would however be keen to see how some FPGA components on a RFIC
integrated ASIC SoC could help DSP and related processing with
flexibility while leaving the ASIC core for performance.


fun considerations... too bad nearly everyone in position to
contribute to such an effort is chained by NDAs, Secrecy Acts, or
other binding Confidentiality clauses.


best regards,



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