The introduction of Spartan-3™ devices has createdmultiple changes in the evolution of embedded controldesigns and pushed processing capabilities to the “almostfreestage.” With these new FPGAs falling under $20, involume, with over 1 million system gates, and under $5for 100K gate-level units, any design with programmablelogic has a readily available 8- or 16-bit processor costingless than 75 cents and 32-bit processor for less than $1.50.