Hi all,

I'm trying to delve into some technical aspects of Bitcoin, and there's still a lot that ranges anywhere from vague to completely unclear. I'm learning, so, if my questions have already been asked (and answered) before, seem stupid, or don't make any sense to you, please enlighten and bear with me.

1) How does integration of hardware acceleration (like e.g. FPGA or ASIC devices) into the "mining process" work ? How does the mining client become "aware" of such hardware acceleration ? In other words, what kind of "mechanism" would a hardware acceleration device need to provide to be recognized by a mining client ?

2) What kind of functionality (with regard to the Bitcoin algorithm) do such hardware acceleration devices usually provide ? Do they only speed up the double-SHA256 calculation, or do they (need to) implement other steps in the Bitcoin algorithm as well ? If so, which ones ? (It is self-understood that only such functionality should be done in hardware, which is supposed to never ever change.)

3) Which factors influence the memory demand of the Bitcoin algorithm ? Does, for instance, the continuously growing size of the blockchain have an effect on the amount of memory (RAM, not disk) that is required to run the Bitcoin algorithm ? Is it possible to calculate (or at least guesstimate) the maximum amount of memory (i.e. an upper threshold) that would never be exceeded when running the Bitcoin algorithm ?

I really hope all this doesn't sound just confusing. In advance, thank you all so much for your help.