Slide 13 of 22 Notes:  

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DSP processors have also benefited from IC process technology. First through higher clock rates and then by adding multiple MAC units in an attempt to turn a sequential machine into a parallel processor but the development effort to launch a new processor is becoming a limiting factor.

FPGAs are inherently scalable parallel processing machines. They benefit from increasing clock speed (results from narrower feature size), but also automatically benefit from the exponential growth in capacity (Mooreâs law). The performance combination of clock speed and the number of logic cells resulted in an 7 times improvement from the 4085 to the V1000.

DSP processors are a good solution for low performance applications and algorithms that require many decision points but for high performance applications FPGAs will continue to have a significant advantage