Home It's Time to Stop Calling Circuits "Hardware" F. Vahid. It's Time to Stop Calling Circuits "Hardware". IEEE Computer Magazine, September 2007.

The advent of field-programmable gate arrays requires that we stop calling circuits â€œhardwareâ€

and, more generally, that we broaden our concept of what constitutes â€œsoftware.â€ ...

Developing modern embedded software capable of executing on multiprocessor and FPGA platforms requires expertise not just in temporally oriented modeling (W comes after X) like writing sequential code but also in spatially oriented modeling (Y connects with Z) like creating circuits. An interesting take on where programming should be heading in the future -- and consequently, where programming languages should also be heading. This article is somewhat related to the recent discussion here on LtU about An interesting take on where programming should be heading in the future -- and consequently, where programming languages should also be heading. This article is somewhat related to the recent discussion here on LtU about FPGA CPUs . As the excerpt above illustrates, Vahid draws a distinction between what he calls "temporally-oriented" computing, which focuses on sequence, and "spatially-oriented" computing, which focuses on connectivity of components. His basic argument is that traditional programming languages (and traditional programming education) focus on temporally-oriented computing, but that the growing use of FPGAs as an integral part of many systems (particularly embedded systems) necessitates a greater emphasis on programming in a spatially-oriented mode. We don't tend to talk too much about "hardware description" languages like VHDL and Verilog here on LtU, but perhaps they are the answer (or at least part of the answer) to Ehud's recent question about which languages we should be discussing to "stay ahead the curve". Comment viewing options Flat list - collapsed Flat list - expanded Threaded list - collapsed Threaded list - expanded Date - newest first Date - oldest first Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.