Comment by tverbeure

2 days ago

The device that you were looking was not an FPGA but a GAL22V10L.

No, it wasn't. Those are mostly available in PLCC and DIP packages and even if you can get the SOIC/TSSOP versions they still cost $1.20 each at 10k volume. That's flat-out unacceptable for 99% of the things I do. The entire rest of the board I was talking about was $4.60. Processor included. $1.20 is not going to fly.

  • “Reduces use case and requirements to something impossibly niche and low volume then yells at the clouds.”

    Anyway, just tie the output of 21 emitter followers together, add a resistor and - tadaaa - 21 input OR!

    • Hey, that was my problem from last week. And, yes, I agree with you -- it was best solved another way.

      But please don't complain when I give concrete examples of things I'd like to do but couldn't. (And please do recognize that there was a lot more context to the mess than just "I need an OR gate", but no one cares about the real gory details.)

    • If only someone could make a single part that is very versatile, so that it could get production economies of scale while solving all the thousands of different random problems various people might have, whether they need a 21-input OR or something else. Like an array of gates, but field-programmable!

      (That's a pretty steep price target even for a small FPGA though. With 16 pins maybe, but with 25?)