Three Engineering Realities That Cannot Be Avoided at Scale

1. Timing Uncertainty Scales with System Size

In small display setups, minor timing variation is harmless. In large systems, it is cumulative. A single image frame is often split, routed, transformed, and recombined across multiple paths. If those paths are governed by state-dependent scheduling (OS, drivers, GPU load), timing drift is inevitable. This is not a tuning problem. It is a question of whether the system has a defined timing model that remains valid after:

• restarts
• source changes
• maintenance
• mises à jour du logiciel

FPGA-based pipelines operate without an operating system and without runtime scheduling. Once defined, their timing behavior does not vary. That property is the core architectural difference.

2. Software Processing Chains and “State-Space Explosion”

As display systems grow, software-centric processing introduces what engineers recognize as state-space explosion:

• The number of possible internal states increases faster than the system size
• Rare timing conflicts emerge only after long uptime
• Failures become difficult or impossible to reproduce

From an engineering standpoint, a system that cannot reliably reproduce its own behavior is not verifiable. FPGA-based systems reduce this problem by eliminating large classes of hidden state. Input–output behavior is defined by structure, not by execution context.

3. Responsibility clarity is a technical outcome, not a contract term

Many long-term display failures are invisible at first. When geometry shifts or seams appear months after installation, responsibility often becomes ambiguous:

• content pipelines assume displays will “handle it”
• display teams assume upstream sources are stable
• software teams point to drivers or updates

The issue is not communication. It is architecture. When critical behaviors (geometry, overlap, synchronization) are implemented in a fixed hardware layer, responsibility becomes technically anchored. Fault isolation becomes possible.

Architectural risk profiles (not product comparison)

This is not about performance leadership. It is about which risks you are choosing to carry forward.

When FPGA-based processing becomes defensible

FPGA is not necessary for every system. It becomes a defensible architectural choice when:

• the system must operate unattended for long periods
• visual continuity has public, spatial, or safety impact
• behavior must survive handover between teams
• recalibration after every intervention is unacceptable

At that point, predictability is no longer an optimization. It is a requirement.

Design-stage lens (not a checklist)

Before finalizing a system architecture, ask:

• Which display behaviors are not allowed to change over time?
• Can the system reproduce the same behavior after years, not weeks?
• Where is pixel ownership explicitly anchored?
• Does success depend on software state or on fixed structure?

• Can a new team restore the system without historical knowledge?

If these questions cannot be answered at the architecture stage, they will reappear later as operational risk.

Closing: why this belongs in the technical layer discussion

FPGA-based processing matters not because it is “more powerful,” but because it is less ambiguous. In large display systems, long-term stability is not achieved through better tuning. It is achieved by deciding which behaviors must never depend on chance. That decision is architectural.