ASIC Types: CPU v/s FPGA

CPU is general purpose processor. Good for performing a wide variety of tasks but performance may not be optimal for any specific task or function.

FPGA is application & task specific, and is reprogrammable logic that can be reconfigured at customer's end to provide optimized performance for a specific function.

For instance, FPGA's may be used as accelerators or co-processors in HPC environments.