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Today, pretty much everyone has a CPU, a DSP and a GPU, buried somewhere in their PC, phone, car, etc. Most don't know or care that they bought any of these, but they did. Will everyone, at some future point, also buy an FPGA? The market size of FPGAs today is about 1% of the annual global semiconductor sales (~$3B vs ~$300B). Will FPGA eventually become a must-have, or will its volume remain relatively low? Programmability is a feature, not just a tax on efficiency.
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Collin Jasnoch wrote: Ahhh... the FPGA is actually 3x worse on power is what that says.
I'm really curious. I worked out the numbers based on those given, coming up with the same result that the author did.
Assuming a worst case scenario
DSP - 2Watts. I/O multiple index 1.0 (defined as a multiple of max possible in the dsp)
FPGA - 10Watts. I/O multiple index 10 (i.e 10x as many as the dsp)
Best case scenario
DSP - 3Watts. I/O multiple index: 1.0
FPGA - 10Watts. I/O multiple index: 100
As I see it, in the worst case scenario, that means the fpga has 10 times the throughput, at 5 times the energy consumption.
That seems to me to be 1/2 of the power consumption, or (10/5 =) 2x the energy efficiency.
Conversely, in the best-case the fpga has 100 times the throughput, at 3.3 times the energy consumption
That again, appears to be 100 times the performance for 3.3 times the energy - or (100/3.3) = 30.3x the energy efficiency.
Is there something I've foolishly overlooked here? I'm really quite perplexed by your assertion.
Make it work. Then do it better - Andrei Straut
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Indeed, when under-utilized I could see the fpga get an award in sucking.
Collin Jasnoch wrote: He states them as separate indicators
Bingo! That's the bit I wasn't quite sharp enough to pick-up. 
I guess the remainder reads like "if you drive a dump truck to get your groceries, it will suck compared to driving your family car" Even if the dump-truck has better fuel efficiency when loaded, this figure can hardly be used with any authority when discussing a situation of such massive under-utilization. You've just used 100 times the fuel and a vehicle that costs 30x as much.
Thanks!
Make it work. Then do it better - Andrei Straut
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By day, David Auld is an Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) in the oil and gas industry. But when the production platform is humming along without him, Auld indulges his hobby as a devout “petrol-head” (car enthusiast). He also finds time to feed a passion for programming, which led to him earning a 2012 BSC Honours Degree in Computing. Surprisingly, these three facets of the native Scotsman all converged when Auld won the Entertainment Category of the Intel App Innovation Contest. From Top Gear to Top Winner: Our own Dave Auld wins!
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Congratulations, Dave!
/ravi
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Thomas Ptacek tweeted yesterday that "If you're not learning crypto by coding attacks, you might not actually be learning crypto." Judging by the number of twitter "favourites" and "retweets" of this comment, it seems to have struck a chord; but with all respect to Thomas, I absolutely disagree. Not only is it possible to learn cryptography without writing a line of code, but coding attacks is entirely useless for learning about modern cryptography; the best route to learning modern cryptography is a study of mathematical proofs. Attacking modern security is mostly looking for bugs in code, not the underlying cryptography.
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We are shocked, shocked…[^]
Is it just me or does the entire news media — as well as all the agitators and self-righteous bloviators on both sides of the aisle — not understand even the rudiments of electronic intercepts and the manner in which law enforcement actually uses such intercepts? It would seem so.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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and he lost me immediately at "inevitable and understandable"
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Bit long and rambling but he makes a good point.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
me, in pictures
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TL;DR; The police have been "data gathering" for years! What's your beef!??!
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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ahmed zahmed wrote: What's your beef!??!
I don't have one unless an extra large bacon burger counts? 
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
me, in pictures
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Just summarizing, ICYDK.
And I'll have a double order of bacon, please!
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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I think we all need to buy those applications we can find at the Apple AppStore which enable us to summarize our daily activities and post it on Facebook.
Rather, we might as well mail it straight to NSA so that they are spared the effort of going through Facebook.
I have always felt that rather than carrying cellphones which report our whereabouts to the provider which data has to be summoned by the NSA we might as well have a chip implanted in our bodies powered by our own muscle movements that directly transmits our locations to the NSA.
One chip to rule them all!
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I'm interested in people's current predictions on what will happen to the various languages over the next few years. Java has had a bad press in recent years but has a major new release. Is this a new lease of life, particularly with Android taking off so rapidly? What languages and frameworks are on your radar today... and tomorrow?
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Did that get lost in the mail for a few years? 
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Terrence Dorsey wrote: What languages and frameworks are on your radar today... and tomorrow?
Still learning Python - a nice but boring language. I like Perl better, crazy as it sounds.
Also C++ 11.
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Terrence Dorsey wrote: What languages and frameworks are on your radar today... and tomorrow?
Java and Android.
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Norm .droid wrote: Java and Android.
At least do yourself a favor and ditch Eclipse. They introduced something based on IntelliJ: Android Studio[^]
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I tried it when first announced. I like IntelliJ for normal java development; but calling that release of Android Studio pre-alpha would have been generous. After wasting about 90 minutes of my life I ragequit and swore it off until at least 2 major releases in the future.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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At the moment its .net but then I write in house software where I work and Windows 8 is a very very long way off (years more than likely).
Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians.
Help end the violence EAT BACON
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Many years ago, back in Uni, I saw 2 guys in a computer lab writing a whole programming assignment without running it even once. The program was of relatively decent size written in C and consequently there were hundreds of compilation errors. That’s so silly, I thought.... After graduation I used to be a C++ programmer. The syntax sometimes was quite tricky and you would often compile after every new line of code. Sometimes, you would dare to write a whole function, just to find 10 compilation errors. Since then the way I code has changed with help of modern IDE... Do IDEs help you code better, or just keep up with ever more complicated systems?
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Interesting the C# questions are not as common. Java seemed to be on the ropes at one time, but has had a resurgence. The weakness of C# may be an indication of the bad strategic moves the Microsoft has recently made in basically eliminating support of Silverlight, and making an OS (Windows 8) that does not provide precieved enhancement for desktop users. Is Android the future. Maybe. Meanwhile I am a C# programmer working with WPF.
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