PLD's have been around for years. (Score 2, Informative)

The concept of a programmable hardware device isn't all that new. And the encoding and encryption they talk about speeding up is a typical application of PLD's. High end routers use similar devices to optimize their tables etc. Kuro5shin has a nice article for beginners. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/27/213254/152