ECS, AGA, Workbench? No I don't hate them.

[Fats]

And using VHDL to develop silicon would not be the optimal way to design an ASIC.

What do you mean ? Do you want to place every transistor by hand ? Or are you referring to the higher level languages (SystemC or SystemVerilog) ?
For medium size ASICs I think RTL languages like VHDL or Verilog are still the right thing to use.

greets,
Staf.

[Fats]

That is strictly a matter of opinion, as the hardware requires reconfiguration each time it is restarted, its still relying on a software program that configures it.Whether the hardware "becomes" what the code tells it to or is programmed it emulate it is a matter of interpretation.

But if I make an Altera Hardcopy version of the design it magically tranform into  'real' hardware just because it does not need a Flash to get started ? And the same if I would use some of the Flash based FPGAs or a one time programmable FPGA ?

greets,
Staf.

[Fats]

Yep, I'm feeling more than little guilty of being a bit too aggressive myself. I mean frankly I think of FPGAs as a form of emulation myself. But there's programable logic available right now that I would hesitate to add to a design because it would simply it.We are all getting a little too hostile.

Amiga.org the Palestine of computer websites.

Sorry I was agitated and I put my questions in an offensive way; my apologies.
But for me it is very hard to understand the fundamental difference between a SRAM based FPGA and a Flash or anti-fuse based FPGA. The transistors inside the device are working exactly the same way only the configuration is done differently; there are even SRAM based FPGAs that are combined with a Flash die in one package (through system-in-a-package) so no external configuration is needed.

As I am currently employed in the hardware design business I follow closely what is happening in this world through things like FPGA Journal. A lot of the equipment for telecom or networking is using FPGAs now; if you open a Cisco router there is a good chance it contains an FPGA. So for some people here a big part of the internet is now run not on 'real' hardware but on emulation of hardware. Personally I would call is hardware and not software.
This target market is also the reason why Altera and Xilinx try to beat each other with the speed of their IOs.

greets,
Staf.