Well damn, I really like tinkering. But not $10k+ tinkering, not old enough yet
(need more disposable income)
That said, I am still interested.
I looked into HDL (VHDL) yesterday and it made sense at the basics, still dont understand the overall idea though.
VHDL, is it like PLC ladders?
The lowest level/application level I have written is real time (3ms update loop) C software for industrial machine controls. Huge state machine. But I don't think this touches anything with VHDL.
VHDL, so you describe AND/OR/etc gates and then combine to make GCD calcs and Multiplexors. I understand we can built these circuits with the language. How then does the logic we made in the VHDL language get transferred to the chip? Also I take it, out of VHDL we can create a SHA-256 algorithm?
(This might make absolutely no sense.... I am a software engineering not electrical...)
FPGA to me is a programmable IC, we can tell the IC what it does (we tell it to hash). But we can also tell it to do (I think) anything an IC can do. So I figure a FPGA must have overhead for components (Ethernet, usb, etc) that is unused. Would this mean the same size FPGA chip and ASIC chip, the ASIC is always better because it is purpose built and it removes all unnecessary overhead?
