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by bsandbox 5344 days ago
Yes, initially. But as the manufacturing processes mature, these prices reduce dramatically over time. Price reductions of an order of magnitude are not unusual over the course of two or three years.
1 comments

I meant this more as a data point for realistic mental comparison to an ASIC, or anyone thinking they might use one. It's cool that it's achievable, and saying "This (big-n) gate count part is available today!" is nice and gee-whizzy for the press release and trade mags, but divorced from it's cost doesn't mean much to someone who would put it to work, as I'd expect at least a few here on HN to be.

High-end Virtex 4 parts from 2004 still cost over $10k. These aren't the devices you design into products unless your market is low volume, high margin, and long life-cycle. This is the part you buy to prototype your own ASIC design.

Considering my current rhythm, by the time I finish learning VHDL, it'll be available for US$10 a piece ;-)
I'd consider spending time with SystemVerilog.
Sounds intriguing. I am not sure where to start from, however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SystemVerilog