However, there are applications where you just need high speed "bit banging", where you pretty much had to use an FPGA before.
I meant to mention RP2040 as an example, since I was talking about it's PIO feature, not because other microcontrollers do not have similar features, but because it's the most well known.
For example, RP2040 PIO is flexible and fast enough to run DVI/HDMI purely in software. Bit banging at 133 MHz (and even at 252 MHz overclocked, I'm sure there's no need for the do-not-use-in-production OC disclaimer).
However, there are applications where you just need high speed "bit banging", where you pretty much had to use an FPGA before.
I meant to mention RP2040 as an example, since I was talking about it's PIO feature, not because other microcontrollers do not have similar features, but because it's the most well known.
For example, RP2040 PIO is flexible and fast enough to run DVI/HDMI purely in software. Bit banging at 133 MHz (and even at 252 MHz overclocked, I'm sure there's no need for the do-not-use-in-production OC disclaimer).
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/bitbanged-dvi-on-a-raspberry...