[Discuss-gnuradio] Why an FPGA?

[Tim Ansell]

Hello,

I've been a ghost on this list for quite a long time, since before the
development of the USRP. I've always found the idea of SDR really quite
interesting.

Recently because of my university studies I have been exposed to both
FPGA's and DSP. I've come to ponder "Why use a FPGA instead of a DSP?".

It would seem that they are comparable in price. Both generally need
proprietary software to program. FPGA seems slightly more flexible and
require less supporting parts. While the processing power of DSPs seems
significantly greater.

I'm interested to find out why the FPGA path was taken?

Thanks for your time and effort.

Tim Ansell