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The latter.

In the Super Everdrive and SD2SNES cartridges, the majority of the logic of the cartridge is performed by an FPGA. In photos of the boards, these will be usually labeled 'Altera' or 'Xilinx'.

By the term 'logic', I refer to receiving bus signals from the console, decoding these, and activating the appropriate ICs on the flashcart board to give the right response. It can also provide the menu, SD card I/O and other things.

An FPGA is a kind of reprogrammable chip that can take on almost any role (it can be a processor, a video chip, a sound chip, glue logic, or any combination of these). The function of the FPGA is defined by the 'firmware' you load into it. If the board is set up to do so, and the FPGA has the capacity, there's no reason why the FPGA can't be used to also simulate an expansion chipset.

On June 19 2018, an update was released for the SD2SNES that included Super FX chip emulation into its FPGA firmware.

This means that somebody has determined the range of possible inputs to the Super FX chip and the correct (or correct enough) outputs it would provide, and programmed this in a hardware description language. That description was then included in the SD2SNES FPGA firmware so that within the FPGA there is a 'virtual Super FX chip' that's performing the same calculations as a physical chip would and responding in the same way. A thorough description would include things like internal RAM, counters, buffers, timing, etc.

It would be possible to have a 2nd FPGA that's solely dedicated to the task of 'being' a Super FX chip, but I believe that the single FPGA on the SD2SNES board performs all the cartridge logic and Super FX simulation all 'wired up' appropriately within itself.

This means that, just like software emulation, if the author's understanding of the chip is not 100% correct, there may be slightly miscalculated polygon positions in Star Fox for example, sorry. :)

Does it really have every single chip that any game ever used as hardware inside the Everdrive? Or does it actually emulate them somehow?

The latter.

In the Super Everdrive and SD2SNES cartridges, the majority of the logic of the cartridge is performed by an FPGA. In photos of the boards, these will be usually labeled 'Altera' or 'Xilinx'.

By the term 'logic', I refer to receiving bus signals from the console, decoding these, and activating the appropriate ICs on the flashcart board to give the right response. It can also provide the menu, SD card I/O and other things.

An FPGA is a kind of reprogrammable chip that can take on almost any role (it can be a processor, a video chip, a sound chip, glue logic, or any combination of these). The function of the FPGA is defined by the 'firmware' you load into it. If the board is set up to do so, and the FPGA has the capacity, there's no reason why the FPGA can't be used to also simulate an expansion chipset.

On June 19 2018, an update was released for the SD2SNES that included Super FX chip emulation into its FPGA firmware.

This means that somebody has determined the range of possible inputs to the Super FX chip and the correct (or correct enough) outputs it would provide, and programmed this in a hardware description language. That description was then included in the SD2SNES FPGA firmware so that within the FPGA there is a 'virtual Super FX chip' that's performing the same calculations as a physical chip would and responding in the same way. A thorough description would include things like internal RAM, counters, buffers, timing, etc.

It would be possible to have a 2nd FPGA that's solely dedicated to the task of 'being' a Super FX chip, but I believe that the single FPGA on the SD2SNES board performs all the cartridge logic and Super FX simulation all 'wired up' appropriately within itself.

This means that, just like software emulation, if the author's understanding of the chip is not 100% correct, there may be slightly miscalculated polygon positions in Star Fox for example, sorry. :)

Does it really have every single chip that any game ever used as hardware inside the Everdrive? Or does it -- shudder -- emulate them somehow?

The latter.

In the Super Everdrive and SD2SNES cartridges, the majority of the logic of the cartridge is performed by an FPGA. In photos of the boards, these will be usually labeled 'Altera' or 'Xilinx'.

By the term 'logic', I refer to receiving bus signals from the console, decoding these, and activating the appropriate ICs on the flashcart board to give the right response. It can also provide the menu, SD card I/O and other things.

An FPGA is a kind of reprogrammable chip that can take on almost any role (it can be a processor, a video chip, a sound chip, glue logic, or any combination of these). The function of the FPGA is defined by the 'firmware' you load into it. If the board is set up to do so, and the FPGA has the capacity, there's no reason why the FPGA can't be used to also simulate an expansion chipset.

On June 19 2018, an update was released for the SD2SNES that included Super FX chip emulation into its FPGA firmware.

This means that somebody has determined the range of possible inputs to the Super FX chip and the correct (or correct enough) outputs it would provide, and programmed this in a hardware description language. That description was then included in the SD2SNES FPGA firmware so that within the FPGA there is a 'virtual Super FX chip' that's performing the same calculations as a physical chip would and responding in the same way. A thorough description would include things like internal RAM, counters, buffers, timing, etc.

It would be possible to have a 2nd FPGA that's solely dedicated to the task of 'being' a Super FX chip, but I believe that the single FPGA on the SD2SNES board performs all the cartridge logic and Super FX simulation all 'wired up' appropriately within itself.

This means that, just like software emulation, if the author's understanding of the chip is not 100% correct, there may be slightly miscalculated polygon positions in Star Fox for example, sorry. :)

The latter.

In the Super Everdrive and SD2SNES cartridges, the majority of the logic of the cartridge is performed by an FPGA. In photos of the boards, these will be usually labeled 'Altera' or 'Xilinx'.

By the term 'logic', I refer to receiving bus signals from the console, decoding these, and activating the appropriate ICs on the flashcart board to give the right response. It can also provide the menu, SD card I/O and other things.

An FPGA is a kind of reprogrammable chip that can take on almost any role (it can be a processor, a video chip, a sound chip, glue logic, or any combination of these). The function of the FPGA is defined by the 'firmware' you load into it. If the board is set up to do so, and the FPGA has the capacity, there's no reason why the FPGA can't be used to also simulate an expansion chipset.

On June 19 2018, an update was released for the SD2SNES that included Super FX chip emulation into its FPGA firmware.

This means that somebody has determined the range of possible inputs to the Super FX chip and the correct (or correct enough) outputs it would provide, and programmed this in a hardware description language. That description was then included in the SD2SNES FPGA firmware so that within the FPGA there is a 'virtual Super FX chip' that's performing the same calculations as a physical chip would and responding in the same way. A thorough description would include things like internal RAM, counters, buffers, timing, etc.

It would be possible to have a 2nd FPGA that's solely dedicated to the task of 'being' a Super FX chip, but I believe that the single FPGA on the SD2SNES board performs all the cartridge logic and Super FX simulation all 'wired up' appropriately within itself.

This means that, just like software emulation, if the author's understanding of the chip is not 100% correct, there may be slightly miscalculated polygon positions in Star Fox for example, sorry. :)

Does it really have every single chip that any game ever used as hardware inside the Everdrive? Or does it -- shudder -- emulate them somehow?

The latter.

In the Super Everdrive and SD2SNES cartridges, the majority of the logic of the cartridge is performed by an FPGA. In photos of the boards, these will be usually labeled 'Altera' or 'Xilinx'.

By the term 'logic', I refer to receiving bus signals from the console, decoding these, and activating the appropriate ICs on the flashcart board to give the right response. It can also provide the menu, SD card I/O and other things.

An FPGA is a kind of reprogrammable chip that can take on almost any role (it can be a processor, a video chip, a sound chip, glue logic, or any combination of these). The function of the FPGA is defined by the 'firmware' you load into it. If the board is set up to do so, and the FPGA has the capacity, there's no reason why the FPGA can't be used to also simulate an expansion chipset.

On June 19 2018, an update was released for the SD2SNES that included Super FX chip emulation into its FPGA firmware.

This means that somebody has determined the range of possible inputs to the Super FX chip and the correct (or correct enough) outputs it would provide, and programmed this in a hardware description language. That description was then included in the SD2SNES FPGA firmware so that within the FPGA there is a 'virtual Super FX chip' that's performing the same calculations as a physical chip would and responding in the same way. It would be possible to have a 2nd FPGA that's solely dedicated to the task of 'being' a Super FX chip, but I believe that the single FPGA on the SD2SNES board performs all the cartridge logic and Super FX simulation all 'wired up' appropriately within itself.

This means that, just like software emulation, if the author's understanding of the chip is not 100% correct, there may be slightly miscalculated polygon positions in Star Fox for example, sorry. :)

Does it really have every single chip that any game ever used as hardware inside the Everdrive? Or does it -- shudder -- emulate them somehow?

The latter.

In the Super Everdrive and SD2SNES cartridges, the majority of the logic of the cartridge is performed by an FPGA. In photos of the boards, these will be usually labeled 'Altera' or 'Xilinx'.

By the term 'logic', I refer to receiving bus signals from the console, decoding these, and activating the appropriate ICs on the flashcart board to give the right response. It can also provide the menu, SD card I/O and other things.

An FPGA is a kind of reprogrammable chip that can take on almost any role (it can be a processor, a video chip, a sound chip, glue logic, or any combination of these). The function of the FPGA is defined by the 'firmware' you load into it. If the board is set up to do so, and the FPGA has the capacity, there's no reason why the FPGA can't be used to also simulate an expansion chipset.

On June 19 2018, an update was released for the SD2SNES that included Super FX chip emulation into its FPGA firmware.

This means that somebody has determined the range of possible inputs to the Super FX chip and the correct (or correct enough) outputs it would provide, and programmed this in a hardware description language. That description was then included in the SD2SNES FPGA firmware so that within the FPGA there is a 'virtual Super FX chip' that's performing the same calculations as a physical chip would and responding in the same way. A thorough description would include things like internal RAM, counters, buffers, timing, etc.

It would be possible to have a 2nd FPGA that's solely dedicated to the task of 'being' a Super FX chip, but I believe that the single FPGA on the SD2SNES board performs all the cartridge logic and Super FX simulation all 'wired up' appropriately within itself.

This means that, just like software emulation, if the author's understanding of the chip is not 100% correct, there may be slightly miscalculated polygon positions in Star Fox for example, sorry. :)