Soft Processors as a Prospective Platform of the Future

Abstract

Modern field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) play a very important role in designing of new soft CPUs and integrated systems-on-chips. Compared to an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), FPGAs provide the highest degree of flexibility being almost fully application neutral. The price of such flexibility is higher usage of basic logic gates and decrease in circuit operating frequency caused by the use of switched interconnect fabric as opposed to fixed metal interconnect defined by masks at manufacturing for ASIC.However due to more regular and less complex FPGA structure they lead in terms of new IC manufacturing technologies adoption. Therefore we can expect next generation of general purpose FPGA devices based on 14nm norms in 2017.This article examines the applicability of Moore's Law to general purpose FPGAs, using datum for Xilinx Spartan and Altera Cyclone families. On the basis of the obtained data the conclusion that in the near future FPGAs become a prospective platform for general purpose CPUs implementation is drawn.