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by dailykoder 831 days ago
They enable a lot of crazy defence products. A well known german product for example is the Iris-T from Diehl Defence. Highly accurate and exceptional engineering. But I guess FPGAs are in most defence products nowadays. I think the biggest reason is that you can build/verify your own hardware without having to go through the expensive ASIC manufacturing

Edit: I just realized that these are some literal killer apps. That wasn't even intentional, lol.
2 comments
bayindirh 831 days ago
> But I guess FPGAs are in most defence products nowadays.

Yes.

> I think the biggest reason is that you can build/verify your own hardware without having to go through the expensive ASIC manufacturing.

Plus, you don't give out your secrets to fabs, too. Design, verify, launch, discard, without the need for signing an NDA.

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jeff-davis 830 days ago
"Plus, you don't give out your secrets to fabs, too."

That's a perfect answer to my question, thank you.

Also many other great answers in this thread, but I don't have much to add.

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FLT8 831 days ago
It also probably makes it easier to prevent adversaries from being able to delid/reverse engineer products. When using FPGAs you don't even need to have the firmware/gateware on or near device until it's in use, which would help prevent any sensitive trade secrets from making it into the wrong hands.
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tadfisher 831 days ago
"Jones, fire on the bandit at 270."

"Yessir."

"Jones, why isn't that SAM in the air?"

"Sarge, it's flashing the bitstream. The progress bar says 60%."

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