The OpenCores reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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OpenCores

Time you got around to sponsoring a child
OpenCores is a loose collection of people who are interested in developing hardware, with a similar ethos to the free software movement. Currently the emphasis is on digital modules called 'cores', since FPGAs have reduced the incremental cost of a core to approximately zero. The cores are implemented in VHDL.

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