Although designers have been performing dsp tasks in fpgas since the late 1990s, the fpga has only recently moved to the point where it represents a viable alternative to dedicated dsps.
This transition has been underlined by major manufacturers developing product sub families targeted entirely at dsp applications. Examples include Xilinx, with its Virtex-4 SX, Virtex-5 SXT and Spartan-3A DSP ranges, and Lattice, with the ECP2 and ECP2M families. Altera, meanwhile, offers the Stratix IIIE.
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