FPGA stands for field-programmable gate array. That’s quite a mouthful, so let’s start with a basic definition. Essentially, an FPGA is a hardware circuit that a user can program to carry out one or more logical operations. Taken a step further, FPGAs are integrated circuits, or ICs, which are sets of circuits on a chip—that’s the “array” part. Those circuits, or arrays, are groups of programmable logic gates, memory, or other elements.