Quote from: zvs on April 02, 2013, 10:26:43 AM

Quote from: nfhiggs on April 02, 2013, 10:24:45 AM

Quote from: Decagrog on April 02, 2013, 09:21:41 AM

It seems strange to me that there are not other alternative to avalon and bfl, is so hard to put an asic chip... the entire board seems relative small and simple and probably exits already developer boards available from the chip companies
Just for curiosity, anyone know wicch chip bfl use? Maybe Altera?

LOL - you clearly don't quite know what an ASIC is. Altera are programmable chips - FPGA's. I programmed a lot of them when I worked for Beckman Coulter.

ASICs are custom made chips. They are very efficient because they will only run that one single application they are built for. You have to design the chip yourself, then pay a wafer manufacturer to make it for you, and they don't like to make stuff in small quantities.

Building an ASIC is not an easy task, and its not cheap either, which makes me very suspicious of the BFL Jalapeno....

I was told 500k-1m by someone that works at Coherent Logix... does that sound about right? I imagine Avalon was able to get it done much cheaper, seeing as how most of these components are made in china/taiwan

Yes I admit I didn't know much about, now it make more sense...thanks for the clarification