FPGA

Field Programmable Gate Array – An integrated circuit that can be configured after manufacturing.

FPGAs offer more flexibility than CPUs (Central Processing Units) or GPUs (General or Graphical Processing Units), and advanced vehicles may have dozens or more.

It is often used as an accelerator and excels at parallel processing, while it’s main characteristic of being reprogrammed over the air is appealing to manufacturers whose products have a long lifespan (i.e. cars with safety features whose software is still developing even if the hardware is fixed).