Looking for Microcontroller Recommendations
in [Design]
|
From: Jan Panteltje on 18 Jan 2010 05:51 On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico(a)puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890(a)news.planet.nl>: >>Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM. >>>without rewriting from scratch if you have to. >> >>Product lifetime... think about it. > >Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of >people don't realize it but for companies that do software development >the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of >investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge >waste of money. That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages, Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday. Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis. Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind), ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,. No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry. ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded. They have good a PR team perhaps. The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.
From: Nico Coesel on 18 Jan 2010 14:14 Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico(a)puntnl.niks >(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890(a)news.planet.nl>: > >>>Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM. >>>>without rewriting from scratch if you have to. >>> >>>Product lifetime... think about it. >> >>Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of >>people don't realize it but for companies that do software development >>the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of >>investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge >>waste of money. > >That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages, >Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around >after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday. At what price? There are two ways a manufacturor forces you to new products: obsolete or triple the price. Renesas also carries a lot of old stuff. If you don't want to re-design you pay for it. It costs money to keep old >Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis. >Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind), How about Motorola? >ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,. Xilinx's Virtex series are expensive as always. If you want production, you need Spartan. >No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry. >ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded. A cpu which sells 2.45 billion units in a year is definitely mainstream. "ARM's 2006 annual report and accounts state that royalties totalling 88.7 million GBP (164.1 million USD) were the result of licensees shipping 2.45 billion units.[42] This is equivalent to 0.036 GBP (0.067 USD) per unit shipped. However, this is averaged across all cores, including expensive new cores and inexpensive older cores." (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture) >They have good a PR team perhaps. >The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems. Now you're trolling. -- Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply indicates you are not using the right tools... nico(a)nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) --------------------------------------------------------------
From: Nico Coesel on 18 Jan 2010 15:52 Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >On a sunny day (Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:14:05 GMT) it happened nico(a)puntnl.niks >(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b54aeaa.767875078(a)news.planet.nl>: > >>Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> >>>On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico(a)puntnl.niks >>>(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890(a)news.planet.nl>: >>> >>>>>Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM. >>>>>>without rewriting from scratch if you have to. >>>>> >>>>>Product lifetime... think about it. >>>> >>cores, including expensive new cores and inexpensive older cores." >> >>(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture) >> >>>They have good a PR team perhaps. >>>The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems. >> >>Now you're trolling. > >No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a good small mobo for <70 Euro? > http://www.alternate.nl/html/product/Moederborden_Socket_441/ASRock/A330GC/-1079713/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Moederborden&l2=Intel&l3=Socket+Atom >8 Watt! Now you are trying to sell me a car without seats and tires. Ofcourse I want it to have memory, storage, connection to an LVDS LCD panel, some real integrated parallel I/O and a PSU that runs from some DC voltage source (lets say 5V or 12V) ofcourse. I know about these boards; we use them as little as possible. If you want a complete system you'll get close to 200 euro. Add some add-on boards for I/O and a decent audio interface and you get close to 300 euro. And there are many reliability issues. I know from experience that it takes a lot of work to turn such a board into a reliable solution. And these is always a fan running that needs to be replaced approx. every 3 years. A beagleboard fits the bill much better and costs half your solution. http://beagleboard.org/ -- Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply indicates you are not using the right tools... nico(a)nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) --------------------------------------------------------------
From: Nobody on 19 Jan 2010 03:54 On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:26:29 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote: > I made 30, but still counting. > How many do you have in the room you are in? 3 x86 PC's (2 functional, one dead), a MIPS-based router, and a variety of PICs (although, apart from the one in the PICkit2, they aren't part of anything, they're just "parts"). There's bound to be a CPU in the monitor, but no idea what sort. I'm not much of a "gadget" person (I don't even have a mobile phone). There are probably more CPUs in the kitchen than here ;)
From: Jan Panteltje on 19 Jan 2010 06:45
On a sunny day (Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:54:35 +0000) it happened Nobody <nobody(a)nowhere.com> wrote in <pan.2010.01.19.08.53.33.125000(a)nowhere.com>: >On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:26:29 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote: > >> I made 30, but still counting. >> How many do you have in the room you are in? > >3 x86 PC's (2 functional, one dead), a MIPS-based router, and a variety of >PICs (although, apart from the one in the PICkit2, they aren't part of >anything, they're just "parts"). There's bound to be a CPU in the monitor, >but no idea what sort. > >I'm not much of a "gadget" person (I don't even have a mobile phone). Mobile phones are cool, mine even can do internet. Also have a ssh client, opera browser, and irc client on it :-) > >There are probably more CPUs in the kitchen than here ;) Yes, the CPUs rule, once they become AI we are lost. |