A field-programmable gate array, or FPGA for short, is the chameleon of the silicon chip world. They're reconfigurable chips that can be programmed to perform a wide array of of tasks. In PC gaming, the most famous example of such a chip at work is probably Nvidia's G-Sync module. Long story short, the ability to recode FPGAs on the fly creates a ton of usage scenarios in the hands of a capable engineer.In more recent years, they've been held up as a sort of holy grail by the retro gaming community for their handiness in recreating classic consoles.