Hi,
On the subject of stealing your program it seems to me that it will be as
easy/difficult with either method.
On why to use it i guess is to do with the manufacturing processes, the
fpga is ram based device and to add the flash to store the program is
probably space consuming( chip wise) for something that will be used very
infrequently to load the program.
Not that Altera also have CPLDs that are flash based devices and do not
need a config device.

Best regards
                 Luis
 On Jun 10, 2012 7:50 PM, "Andre Abelian" <abelian.andre@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I noticed that altera uses external ic to hold the program memory is ther=
e
> any advantage?
>  why use external some one can still the code.  how come xilinx or lattic=
e
> program memory is internal.
>
>
> any idea?
>
> thanks
>
> Andre
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