FPGA: Field Programmable Gate Array, which is the product of further development on the basis of PAL, GAL, CPLD and other programmable devices. It appears as a semi-custom circuit in the field of application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), which not only solves the shortcomings of custom circuits, but also overcomes the shortcomings of the limited number of original programmable device gate circuits.
Embedded system (Embedded system) is a kind of "dedicated computer system that is completely embedded inside the controlled device and designed for specific applications". According to the definition of the UK Institution of Electrical Engineers, an embedded system is a control system. , monitoring or auxiliary equipment, machinery or equipment used in the operation of the plant.
The following takes the single-chip microcomputer as an example.
So the two concepts are not at the same level. The former concept refers to hardware implementation, while the latter is a system-level thing.
The hardware architecture of the microcontroller (such as the popular stm32 or ARM) has been determined, and the user controls the microcontroller to execute tasks sequentially by writing instructions.
FPGA can be regarded as many logic gates, and users organize logic gates into circuits through HDL. So from the application level, FPGA is closer to hardware. For example, if you want to calculate a 4-bit addition, if you use a single-chip microcomputer, there is at most one ADD instruction. You can't control how to implement it; then on FPGA, you can use different circuits to implement (parallel OR serial), and the execution efficiency and Resource occupancy can be accurate down to the gate level.
FPGA can also be used as the computing core of embedded system. Since FPGA is closer to hardware than microcontroller, it should not be surprising that FPGA can simulate a microcontroller? This is the so-called "soft core".
Therefore, the FPGA can do what the MCU can do, but the MCU can not do what the FPGA can do.
The FPGA is constructed by hardware, and the single-product machine is written by software.
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