Actually, nowadays, over a third of all high-end ASIC designers use FPGAs for prototyping design with higher count of logic gates
. FPGA vendors actually encourage developers to work at early stages with FPGA components before converting them to ASIC, just as they encourage them to continue working with them even after the prototype development. Encouragement made at the same time the FPGA manufacturers continue to develop better versions of FPGAS while minimizing the disadvantages of the component