Re: GA144 article

From	Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: GA144 article
References	<12aeb4bb-d890-4054-be00-c8c2b25b80dd@k5g2000vbf.googlegroups.com> <20bfe8cc-640d-4c88-8fa7-1ae05de11762@googlegroups.com> <7xhasxwjqj.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <f36c6ee2-bfce-49fa-a200-c30391401e80@googlegroups.com>
Date	2012-07-26 13:25 -0700
Message-ID	<7x394es208.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> (permalink)
Organization	Nightsong/Fort GNOX

Show all headers | View raw

rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> writes:
> I think the first FPGA from Xilinx only had 64 CLBs which at that time
> were likely just one LUT and one FF although I don't recall, that was
> some 20 odd years ago.  And yes, you had to do all your own floor
> planning.  The experts in FPGAs all knew the details of how the
> routing connected.  Now no one cares as they just write HDL and the
> morass of software tools gives you something good enough given the
> huge amount of resources available.

Does saying the GA144 situation today resembles the FPGA situation of 20
years ago (that nobody wants to deal with any more) really make the
GA144 sound so attractive today?  I can accept that the GA144 would have
been an awesome product compared to other devices of that era, if it had
been shipped 20 years ago.  It's harder for me to make such a case in
the GA144's own era.

> I have seen products shipped using only 10% of a $1500 FPGA.

FPGA's come in all sorts of sizes, with cost roughly proportionate to
their size.  Couldn't they have used a $150 FPGA a tenth the size,
especially if they were shipping more than a handful of the product?

> I think the word analogy to be a poor one.  Rather than thinking of a
> node as a Forth word, think of it as a functional element where the
> function is software defined. 

It seems to me that GA144 nodes are probably more efficient than FPGA
cells at doing the stuff that maps naturally to GA144 operations, but
FPGA cells are more flexible at being combined into bigger functions.
Even ignoring limitations on the number of nodes, the speed of
node-to-node communications on the GA144 is rather slow compared to
FPGA's, because you need software on each node copying the data around,
instead of just wires.  Maybe future GA processors can combine more
approaches (FGPA's, DSP slices, etc) with the basic F18 cell.

Back to comp.lang.forth | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-18 03:48 -0700
  Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-19 10:51 -0700
    Re: GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-20 01:30 -0700
      Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-20 01:48 -0700
        Re: GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-20 03:25 -0700
        Re: GA144 article Syd Rumpo <usenet@neonica.co.uk> - 2012-07-20 11:59 +0100
      Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-22 18:59 -0700
        Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-22 19:16 -0700
          Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-22 19:31 -0700
            Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-22 20:08 -0700
              Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-23 16:24 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-23 22:33 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-24 14:04 -0700
            Re: GA144 article vandys@vsta.org - 2012-07-23 03:34 +0000
            Re: GA144 article Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-23 14:11 +0200
              Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-23 16:47 -0700
              Re: GA144 article "Clyde W. Phillips Jr." <cwpjr02@gmail.com> - 2012-07-24 20:11 -0700
          Re: GA144 article Richard Owlett <rowlett@pcnetinc.com> - 2012-07-23 02:04 -0500
  Re: GA144 article Daniel Kalny <dkalny@seznam.cz> - 2012-07-24 02:37 -0700
    Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-24 03:12 -0700
      Re: GA144 article stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2012-07-24 10:36 +0000
        Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-24 10:28 -0700
          Re: GA144 article Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-07-24 22:12 +0000
      Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-24 14:49 -0700
        Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-26 13:25 -0700
          Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-27 13:17 -0700
            Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-27 14:31 -0700
              Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-27 22:02 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-28 23:03 -0700
                Re: GA144 article marko <marko@marko.marko> - 2012-07-30 09:12 +1000
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 01:09 -0700
                Re: GA144 article marko <marko@marko.marko> - 2012-08-01 00:19 +1000
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 09:59 -0700
                Re: GA144 article marko <marko@marko.marko> - 2012-08-01 10:13 +1000
                Re: GA144 article Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-01 00:59 +0200
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 16:54 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Luca Saiu <positron@gnu.org> - 2012-08-04 10:46 +0200
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-05 11:04 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Luca Saiu <positron@gnu.org> - 2012-08-06 02:02 +0200
                Re: GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-06 02:16 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-30 08:23 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-30 21:33 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 01:51 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-31 11:48 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 14:54 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-31 16:09 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-01 12:57 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-01 14:16 -0700
                Re: GA144 article vandys@vsta.org - 2012-08-01 22:32 +0000
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-01 16:03 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-01 16:13 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-01 16:10 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-01 22:18 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-02 11:47 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-02 14:32 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-02 16:01 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-02 16:38 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-03 08:40 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-03 09:19 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-03 11:15 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-05 15:50 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-06 02:21 -0700

csiph-web