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this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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TI isn't necessarily a big deal because it could be lots of things, including simple stuff like 7400-series TTL logic.
Xilinx is more worrying though, since I'm pretty sure all they make are FPGAs.
Xilinx (now AMD) does really only make FPGAs (and some CPLDs I think). However that could also mean a lot of things. For all we know they could be old as all hell and be like Spartan 3 devices, which aren't very big. Or they could also be more powerful, and thus scarier.
I'm a bit of a noob in hardware design, so maybe this is a stupid question, but why is a FPGA scary?
It would seem scarier to me if they actually fabbed an FPGA into an ASIC right? That could maybe indicate they have some kinda plan to mass-produce them, no?
Just that whatever the technological threshold for being included in the sanctions is, every Xilinx chip is complex/advanced/high-performance enough that it would definitely meet it. In other words, unlike with TI chips, you can tell just from the brand name that Russia is definitely not supposed to have it.
Practically speaking, an FPGA could be acting as anything from an encrypted transceiver to a flight controller to an AI coprocessor. Regardless, though, it'd be a relatively complex unit of functionality -- one of the more important chips in the drone, and therefore one of the more important to deny to Russia.