brad wrote:
Can't you design a complex chip and have it programmed or burnt or something onto an FPGA?
This is a little over my head. From what I understand an FPGA has to be turned into an ASIC and FPGA-VHDL isn't easy to be converted unless you go with the brand ALTERA (an assumption). It has to be tested (long and involved process). Unless you know how to do it, you might also have to be paying for sram, pll, io and std cell library IP but you could do it. From what I understand it costs a lot of money and you probably only get a once in a lifetime chance to get it right. Chips use hazardous materials in the making and the disposal process. Remember that Commodore was fined $1,000,000 dollars because they had a tank where they kept the hazardous waste produced from the chips and it leaked. Commodore's MOS building was acquired by their former managers and turned into GMT Electronics. The EPA finally closed them down and ordered the building to be remediated. The users at Amiga.org were under the impression there were masks for the Amiga in the building that should be saved so I contacted the owner he gave me permission to take a few personal pictures of the building. The building was scheduled to be demolished and become a Velodrome if it hasn't already since I've been there. Commodore engineers were looking out the front windows at a golf course if they weren't working.
If I showed you a picture of the back of the building, the building used a lot of electricity and it appeared to be vents for ovens inside of the building. The building was gutted for demolition and there was a flood and the GMT owner considered it (the contents) trash so unfortunately that is the end of the road for anything not saved in the building.
I've also been to places that have had chemical products and they rent out the buildings for office space to pay the taxes and as long as they manufacture at least one product they don't have to scrape all the dirt off of the beadrock and have it incinerated which I think is required by law in some places. Therefore, you would probably have to travel to places in the Far East to probably get one produced unless you did it over the internet.