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NOTICE:
SparkFun will be closing for the day at 2:00pm (MT) on Friday, October 18th for a company event. We will not be open for Local Pick-Up orders at this time. Any orders qualifying for same day shipping placed prior to 12:00pm (MT) will be processed as normal. Any orders placed later will be processed when we re-open for normal business hours on Monday.
Using FPGAs
With the release of our Alchitry FPGA boards, we have a new resource page for you to learn more!
In case you missed it, SparkFun has officially taken over production on the Alchitry Au, Cu, Io and Br FPGA and Element boards! FPGAs, or Field Programmable Gate Arrays, are a class of devices known as programmable logic (sometimes called programmable hardware). An FPGA itself is an integrated circuit that is "field-programmable" — meaning that it is configured by the consumer after being manufactured.
An FPGA device on its own doesn’t do anything, however, an FPGA can be configured to do just about anything. The true benefit of FPGAs are that nothing physically changes with configuration - all the changes are done digitally. Essentially, you are using text-based operations to create hardware interactions. These configurations are RAM-based, so they can be reconfigured many times over. In the FPGA world, we call these configurations digital circuits.
With our new FPGA Resource Page, you can learn more about FPGAs, which boards we offer, and even how you can use them! We've recently written four guides to get you started programming your first FPGA and the steps beyond. If you have ever been curious about learning more about FPGAs, this is the perfect time to read up on the subject and perhaps even start a project with them!
