Making the best of those extra transistors
Frank Vahid · IEEE Design & Test of Computers · 2003
A new world for transistors may be on the horizon. The days of directly implementing custom functionality in transistors, and hence of designers creating their own chips, may be fading away. Prefabricated programmable platforms, considered grossly inefficient just a decade ago, may prevail, leading to lower costs, faster time to market, lower power, and other benefits perhaps not even foreseeable today.