Lately, there's been a lot of talk about FPGAs, especially in the fields of artificial intelligence and edge computing. So, what exactly is this thing called FPGA? 🤔 While CPUs and GPUs have fixed architectures, what's the difference with FPGAs? How can they be reprogrammed and in which scenarios does it make more sense to choose them?
What is an FPGA and how does it work?
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FPGAs, in my opinion, aren't limited to fixed hardware like CPUs; instead, they're like "Lego blocks" where you can redesign the entire circuit using programming logic. For example, when you tell a CPU to "calculate this in this way," it tries to find the best way to do it, but with an FPGA, you're actually building the calculation circuit yourself. So, it's not general-purpose like a CPU; you're literally creating custom hardware.
I think the best comparison is to ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits). ASICs are also specialized hardware like FPGAs, but once they're produced, you can't change them—just like a fixed recipe. FPGAs, on the other hand, are like a "multicooker" where you can constantly tweak the recipe—upload a new program and test a new function right away. In edge computing, for instance, you could process data from a camera in real-time with an FPGA and send only the important data (which, I think, while not as powerful as a GPU, is much more efficient), something a CPU couldn't do as quickly.