Jecel Assumpcao Jr <jecel at merlintec.com> wrote:

> ... - field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have evolved to 
> a degree that custom processors are now very competitive at the low 
> end. For example: I designed a small terminal running Forth on a $20 
> Atmel AVR8 (4 MHz, 128KB Flash, 4KB RAM) processor which was very nice. 
> But then I replaced that with an $9 FPGA, a $2 512KB Flash and a $2.50 
> 8MB SDRAM and implemented a custom Forth processor at 57 MHz (20 to 30 
> times as fast).

How interesting!  I fooled around some with the Harris RTX2001 Forth
chip about 12 years ago (and Forth itself on various chips).  I'm now
doing the software in Forth for a project where power consumption is
important (battery powered) so I was curious about the power consumption
of your Atmel versus FPGA versions.  (We are using an Hitachi H8/532 CPU
currently.)  I imagine the FPGA and SDRAM are power hogs?


-- Frank