Since FPGAs entered the market in the 1980s, they have competed and coexisted with general-purpose CPUs, ASICs and even GPUs. FPGA's low power consumption, programmable, moderate specifications and other characteristics make it occupy a place in the market.

Another use of FPGA is as a supplement to ASIC. The purpose of constructing ASIC is to achieve fixed functions. Adding FPGA can provide some flexibility for the latest changes of products and adapt to different markets.

Compared with the huge "army" required to make ASICs and the number of software programmers worldwide, FPGAs have a small community with many programmers who sometimes behave strangely. FPGA companies are relatively small. The FPGA community is also relatively small.  Intel is pushing the flexibility of FPGAs. It follows the principle of building hardware to run existing software and has become the most successful company in this field.

Altera Stratix® IV GX:EP4SGX530KH40C4N

Modern FPGAs integrate more and more hard core functions and become more and more like ASICs. And ASICs often add some FPGA structures to the design to facilitate debugging, testing, field repair, and increase the flexibility of adding small functions.

But the ASIC team has been fighting against the FPGA concept. The ASIC designer asks "What function does the user need?" and loses patience after getting an answer of "I'm not sure".

The driverless car industry is such a new battlefield. Due to the constant changes of algorithms and the possibility of changes in laws and regulations when cars enter the market, driving techniques need to be constantly adjusted accordingly, which requires flexible and variable solutions. FPGAs have lower clock frequencies, smaller heat sinks, and smaller physical dimensions than CPUs and GPUs. Lower power consumption and smaller size make FPGAs an obvious choice. Nevertheless, the GPU is easier to program and does not require three days of layout and routing.

Altera Stratix® V GS:5SGSMD3H2F35I3N

Another crucial consideration is that for simulation and testing considerations, the same code needs to be run on the car and in the cloud. This requires that the FPGA must be available in the cloud before it can be used in the car. Due to the above problems, many developers prefer to choose GPU.

FPGAs are under continuous development. Modern interfaces are making FPGAs easier to program, more modular, and easier to collaborate with other technologies.