8 bit microcontroller market
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From: Joerg on 5 Sep 2006 13:22 Hello Frank, > >>Thing is, the number of engineers who are able to design something around >>a bunch of discretes or other jelly-bean parts is rapidly declining. To >>the point where many fresh graduates are not even able to understand my >>designs anymore. Suits me but what if us guys retire some day? > > Nothing special will happen. Stuff gets better every day. > Except for field failures or the occasional fatalities. Look at electronics in automotive. I'd never buy a car with dozens of controllers. Seen to many owners become really unhappy and plunk down lots of dough to get it fixed. A lot of stuff actually does not get better but worse. PC software is just one example. Another classic: I have fixed numerous devices that I needed but that were unreliable because of a dirty reset. The "design engineers" couldn't even design a proper reset. Pathetic. >>Beauty is of no importance in an industrial design. Important are only >>these: >> >>a. Fulfills specs, but no more. >>b. Cost >>c. Cost >>d. Cost >>e. Two or more sources (now try that with any other micro) > > Buy and open a dozen of random industrial black boxes and show > me where the 8051 is. You'll be *very* lucky if you find one > or two. > I don't have to buy anything but just stroll down the stairs here to show you the first one. There is a pellet heater which needs to be serviced once a season. I often do that myself. Guess what's timing all the motors in there? Ye olde 8051. Then there are a few medical devices with 8051 and the way it's going it seems their production life will exceed that of many car models. Designed by yours truly :-) Jim mentioned that the 80C51 runs around a billion/year. Where do you think these are going? Is someone eating them? -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com
From: Donald on 5 Sep 2006 14:08 Someone wrote: >> Buy and open a dozen of random industrial black boxes and show >> me where the 8051 is. You'll be *very* lucky if you find one >> or two. >> I finished a product for a company that will be useing 2500 Atmel 89C51RC2 CPUs a month. This product is expected to have a life of 10 years or more. This product replaces a legacy product that used the Atmel AT89S53. There are over 500,000 of these legacy devices out in the field currently. The new design was created because Atmel dis-continued the S53 device. Joerg wrote: > > I don't have to buy anything but just stroll down the stairs here to > show you the first one. There is a pellet heater which needs to be > serviced once a season. I often do that myself. Guess what's timing all > the motors in there? Ye olde 8051. > > Then there are a few medical devices with 8051 and the way it's going it > seems their production life will exceed that of many car models. > Designed by yours truly :-) > > Jim mentioned that the 80C51 runs around a billion/year. Where do you > think these are going? Is someone eating them? > I could not agree with you more.
From: Joerg on 5 Sep 2006 14:26 Hello Donald, >>> Buy and open a dozen of random industrial black boxes and show >>> me where the 8051 is. You'll be *very* lucky if you find one >>> or two. > > I finished a product for a company that will be useing 2500 Atmel > 89C51RC2 CPUs a month. > > This product is expected to have a life of 10 years or more. > > This product replaces a legacy product that used the Atmel AT89S53. > There are over 500,000 of these legacy devices out in the field currently. > > The new design was created because Atmel dis-continued the S53 device. Way to go. If the 8051 architecture has worked for you, why change horses? BTW, I am still designing with CD4000 logic despite the fact that some sales people told me in the early 90's that this logic series in almost dead. Then the mfgs ported it to small SMT packages. Now those sales guys are a little more cautious with such bold "gut feeling" statements or wishful thinking. They initially wanted me to switch to "modern" logic chips. Then I told them "Yeah, if you can point out at least two other manufacturers as sources and drop the price to less than 1.5 cents per inverter". >> >> I don't have to buy anything but just stroll down the stairs here to >> show you the first one. There is a pellet heater which needs to be >> serviced once a season. I often do that myself. Guess what's timing >> all the motors in there? Ye olde 8051. >> >> Then there are a few medical devices with 8051 and the way it's going >> it seems their production life will exceed that of many car models. >> Designed by yours truly :-) >> >> Jim mentioned that the 80C51 runs around a billion/year. Where do you >> think these are going? Is someone eating them? >> > I could not agree with you more. There are also lots of devices where folks like Frank might think it's not an 8051 while in reality it is: When a 8051 core has been included in a custom chip design. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com
From: Joerg on 5 Sep 2006 14:28 Hello Jim, >> The 8051 market saw it's first hit ever with >> ARM's acquisition of Keil, as ARM's own public analyst statements >> clearly show that >> their strategy is to move 8051 users into ARM. > > Well, ARM have to try and talk up their brand, and they _have_ brought > the addresses of all the Keil customers, and doubtless will spam them, > but I doubt it will change designers' decision process a whole lot. > The core matters less and less, over time : other factors dominate > selection. Peripherals, Flash Size, Speed, Pin Count... > ( and that has to concern ARM ) > Add to that: Power consumption and wide supply voltage tolerance. In low-cost battery apps those are crucial. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com
From: Jim Granville on 5 Sep 2006 17:22
Joerg wrote: > Hello Jim, > > >>> The 8051 market saw it's first hit ever with >>> ARM's acquisition of Keil, as ARM's own public analyst statements >>> clearly show that >>> their strategy is to move 8051 users into ARM. >> >> >> Well, ARM have to try and talk up their brand, and they _have_ >> brought the addresses of all the Keil customers, and doubtless will >> spam them, >> but I doubt it will change designers' decision process a whole lot. >> The core matters less and less, over time : other factors dominate >> selection. Peripherals, Flash Size, Speed, Pin Count... >> ( and that has to concern ARM ) >> > > Add to that: Power consumption and wide supply voltage tolerance. In > low-cost battery apps those are crucial. Yes, and it's not just battery apps that benefit, wide supply tolerance also means fewer parts to stock, and better distribution. Companies might want to deploy a 5V design to drive Power MOSFETS, and use the same uC in a design that runs on 3.3V and the same uC again in a battery product. That's where parts like the Silabs C8051F41x, and the new RS08 from Freescale, get a big tick :) -jg |