FPGA advatages
Advantages over ASIC
Faster time to market
It is possible to have tested and verified an idea in hardware much faster without falling into the long process of fabrication of custom ASIC
Lower risk
An FPGA-based product can be reprogramed in-field at any time reducing possible issues in case of mistake in the design.
Longer lifetime
Being reprogrammable, an FPGA-based product supports upgrades and updates. This is very important in telecom, where specifications of the protocols often change over time, so the product is capable of adapting to emerging standards.
Superior functionality
Along with total chip reprogramming, an FPGA can be partially reconfigured. For instance, DSP functions, like FFT are very resource hungry, so it is hardly possible to keep them all in the FPGA. Instead, it is possible to keep the FPGA interface part and load different DSP functions depending on the current project needs.
Advantages over CPU
High speed data
processing
Hardware structure of FPGA is not fixed and determined by the user. So it is possible to have multiple blocks which can function simultaneously, producing tremendous throughput. The quantity of the blocks and the width of internal buses are limited just by chip logic capacity.
Real-time operating with deterministic response
Every logic cell inside the FPGA is cycled by a clock, so the state of every block is known at any given time. The delay between input stimulus and the response is always the same and could be lowered to tens of nanoseconds.
Superior communication capabilities
Almost any combination of existing interfaces can be implemented on the same FPGA chip, while a CPU has a limited list of predefined ones. It is also possible to design an interface with unique features.