Is FPGA code called firmware?...

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[Narada Fernando]

On Monday, February 20, 2006 at 10:18:59 AM UTC-8, Marko wrote:

Traditionally, firmware was defined as software that resided in ROM.
So, my question is, what do you call FPGA code? Is \"firmware\"
appropriate?

I have seen gateware is used to differentiate HDL derived implementations from firmware.

The landscape has changed over time quite a bit. Nowadays we have a soft core processor running software.

At its core, all data processing systems (discrete systems) are doing two things; implementation of an algorithm, and running a state machine.
When implemented in gateware, an algorithm is implemented as a combinatorial circuit, and the state machine is implemented as a sequential circuit.

It is possible to design a complete data processing system as a single discrete system with different frequencies attached to each seq circuit and delays to the algorithms, analyze for throughput, and change the software/gateware boundary at the time of implementation.

Narada