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Unread 18-12-2004, 17:46
Dave Flowerday Dave Flowerday is offline
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Re: pic: Custom Built Stopwatch

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle Fenton
One question. Are those things re-usable (meaning you can program over and over again) or are they just a one time thing, like a PLA
They're definitely reusable. The FPGA itself is RAM-based, so you can download to it over and over as much as you want. The only problem with RAM is that when you power off your design is gone . Luckily, the prototype board that I mentioned (and most others, I believe) include a flash chip which you can download your design into. Then when power is turned on, the FPGA will automatically boot itself from the flash chip. This happens so fast that it appears instant.

One of the applications of FPGAs is to allow designs to be updated or changed in the field (after a product has shipped). (FYI, FPGA stands for Field Programmable Gate Array).
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