Differences between FPGA and ASIC technologies

It is essential to understand and communicate to customers the differences between FPGA and ASIC microchip technologies.

The “Field-Programmable Gate Array” (FPGA) technology allows an integrated circuit, or chipset, to be logically reprogrammed at any time, if necessary. Therefore, FPGA technology allows corrections in logical functions related to bugs, security breaches or even the implementation and availability of new functionalities and capabilities in hardware already produced.

The “Application-Specific Integrated Circuit” (ASIC) technology is related to dedicated-use chipsets that cannot be reprogrammed after production. Logic circuits are definitely “written” into silicon. The correction of a bug or a security breach related to the logical design of the chipset cannot be performed after it is produced (like a field correction or upgrade). Therefore, the financial risk is greater if the solution is not correctly validated and mature.

The manufacturers choose to use ASICs in their equipment due to the low cost of producing chipsets on a large scale, which is much lower than the cost of producing FPGA technology in large quantities. On the other hand, in ASIC technology, the design costs called Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE costs) are high.

FPGA technology is generally used in the product development, prototyping, testing, and initial release phases, allowing corrections and adjustments to the solution, if necessary.

Once the solution is sufficiently mature and validated, the products use ASICs on a large scale from the final logic programs of FPGAs. The costs of converting an FPGA design to ASIC chipsets are relatively less than the NRE costs.

At the beginning of my career, the programming of FPGAs was carried out through logic drawings. Currently, programming is performed using a language called “Hardware Description Language” (HDL).

Thus, it is not correct to say that the logical structure of an ASIC can be reprogrammed. We have even seen recent cases of the need for complete replacement of appliances due to security breaches related to hardware/ASICs, which cannot be corrected in the field.

Some of the leading manufacturers of FPGAs are Intel (former Altera), AMD (Xilinx), Achronix, Altium, Lattice, and Microchip.

In this figure, there is a comparative summary of the technologies.

Hope you got some helpful information from this post!