What is Hardware: Definition and 115 Discussions

Hardware acceleration is the use of computer hardware made to perform some functions more efficiently than in software running on a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU). Any transformation of data or routine that can be computed can be calculated purely in software running on a generic CPU, purely in custom-made hardware, or in some mix of both. An operation can be computed faster in application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) designed or programmed to compute the operation than specified in software and performed on a general-purpose computer processor. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. The implementation of computing tasks in hardware to decrease latency and increase throughput is known as hardware acceleration.
Typical advantages of software include more rapid development, lower non-recurring engineering costs, heightened portability, and ease of updating features or patching bugs, at the cost of overhead to compute general operations. Advantages of hardware include speedup, reduced power consumption, lower latency, increased parallelism and bandwidth, and better utilization of area and functional components available on an integrated circuit; at the cost of lower ability to update designs once etched onto silicon and higher costs of functional verification, and times to market. In the hierarchy of digital computing systems ranging from general-purpose processors to fully customized hardware, there is a tradeoff between flexibility and efficiency, with efficiency increasing by orders of magnitude when any given application is implemented higher up that hierarchy. This hierarchy includes general-purpose processors such as CPUs, more specialized processors such as GPUs, fixed-function implemented on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and fixed-function implemented on ASICs.Hardware acceleration is advantageous for performance, and practical when the functions are fixed so updates are not as needed as in software solutions. With the advent of reprogrammable logic devices such as FPGAs, the restriction of hardware acceleration to fully fixed algorithms has eased since 2010, allowing hardware acceleration to be applied to problem domains requiring modification to algorithms and processing control flow.

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  1. H

    Seagate SSD fails at end of large transfer

    The standalone Seagate SSD that I got for backup failed completely toward the end of a massive transfer. Fortunately almost everything I valued was still available elsewhere. I bought a Seagate hard drive to replace it.
  2. H

    Misc. Attach plates (my design) to the stator core of the machine

    I am working on an electrical engineering project. However, I have come across a specific mechanical engineering problem. I have attached an image to describe what I want to do. I have primarily a stator core (made out of electrical steel laminated sheets) named part number "1". I have a...
  3. The Bill

    Engineering EE resources for audio hardware design?

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  4. Demystifier

    I Ontology is to quantum theory what hardware is to computation theory

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  5. PhysicsTest

    Simple RC Hardware Circuit Understanding -- Questions

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  6. brainbaby

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  7. Arman777

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  8. A

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  9. hb8yh8

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  10. T

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  11. H

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  12. Gothic

    Comp Sci Question regarding Computer Hardware

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  13. J

    Quantum Journal on hardware used to build quantum computers?

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  14. trurle

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  15. A

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  16. fluidistic

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  17. Pattonias

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  18. F

    CSE Project Ideas: Simulate Connected Cars with Vector Canoe Simulator

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  19. jamalkoiyess

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  20. J

    External hardware to use software?

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  21. berkeman

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  22. D

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  23. pairofstrings

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  25. jamalkoiyess

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  26. Kenneth Adam Miller

    I What does the Hadamard correspond to in hardware?

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  27. Nikhil N

    How to make a hardware setup for monitoring BER of modbus

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  28. T

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  29. A

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  30. ScrollPortals

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  31. S

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  32. B

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  33. M

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  34. EinsteinKreuz

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  35. R

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  36. R

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  37. EJC

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  38. jorcesca

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  39. B

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  40. T

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  41. N

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  42. D

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  43. B

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  44. D

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  45. M

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  46. nomadreid

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  47. D

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  48. H

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  49. DeusAbscondus

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  50. I

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