In the medical realm and other areas (e.g., automotive,
networking), architects often ask themselves at the time a new
product has to be designed if they can afford application-
specific integrated circuits (ASICs). In past years, a lot has
been published about the pros and con of using ASICs. These
reports always speak about power consumption, size, and
capabilities, but in the end there is a prohibitive factor: the
price. In the past year, the price of masks has increased
considerably, and it is expected to increase even more. Prices
above $5 million for masks are not so uncommon anymore. Who can
actually afford such costs!? This problem can be more acute for
some high-performance, demanding applications such as medical
imaging. In such applications we need to have significant
processing capabilities and good power consumption performances…
Sure, a well-designed ASIC would work wonders here. For an OEM,
a dream come true would be to convince a semiconductor company
to take an ASIC, pack it with some ARM and/