N. T. wrote:
> At <22 nm process and mass production, it, probably, would be cheaper
> to load-on-demand software CPU / peripherals into FPGAs  than to
> manufacture standard CPUs/MCUs.

No, that's just silly.  If this were true, then people would be doing it an=
d
PICs wouldn't exist.  Do you really think you're the first one to ever have
thought of this?

Implementing logic such as a processor in soft gates is going to take more
silicon than doing the same thing explicitly.  That means a dedicated micro
is going to cost less than the same thing implemented in a FPGA.  There wil=
l
always be high volume applications where the cost difference matters.  That
will guarantee the existance of dedicated micros, which in turn makes them
available to less cost sensitive applications.

Large FPGAs do have soft CPU cores available.  Soft cores are good when you
need a FPGA anyway, and you can use the tightly coupled and slower general
purpose logic of a processor for higher level control or whatever.
Dedicated micros and soft CPU cores are two different things.  One is not
going to obsolete the other any time soon.


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