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AMD To Stop Production Of 486, 586 & K6 Chips
Dear VersaLogic Customer:
This letter is being sent to alert you to an important change in the long-term availability of several VersaLogic products. Please read it carefully.
AMD, the supplier of CPU chips that are used on many of our products, has notified us that they plan to re-tool the production line that currently produces 486, 586 and K6 CPU chips. AMD needs to use their Fab 25 facility to produce a different line of products and will stop production on these CPU chips on June 28, 2002. The CPU chips produced by this facility are used in our VSBC-2, VSBC-6, VSBC-7, Panther, VL-686-2, and VL-586-1 products.
This decision by AMD, with whom we have worked closely for many years, is a major blow to the embedded computer market. It is very surprising that their long-standing dedication to the embedded market has taken such an abrupt turn. As recently as October 2000 they announced new processors (the K6-2E+ and K6-IIIE+) and assured us of their continuing long-term support for the embedded market.
Please note that this decision by AMD does not mean that they will immediately halt production or that these CPU chips will be in short supply. Normal production of these chips is scheduled to continue through June 2002. Last-time-buy orders can be placed in June for delivery of the chips in late 2002 and early 2003.
VersaLogic management has been hearing rumors of this possible change (various versions of it) over the last few months and has been working closely with AMD to avoid this radical change in their direction. We prepared for the possibility that their decision would ultimately be to issue an end-of-life notice. Now that the decision has been made, our focus will be on assisting our customers with planning and migration issues over the next 12-24 months.
Although this change is not immediate, each customer must look at the long term impact that this announcement will have on their product usage. In some cases this will mean placing an end-of-life purchase order with VersaLogic to continue delivery of the current product even after the AMD chips have been discontinued. For others it may involve qualifying new products, or using Intel Tillamook versions of our current products, for the current application. Tillamook versions of most impacted products will be available before year end. For further information please see the roadmap and migration information on our web site at http://www.versalogic.com/support/rdmp/rdmp.asp or contact us directly at info@versalogic.com.
Again, this change is not immediate, but planning steps should be taken now to assure a smooth transition in the future. We stand ready to support you as needed to make this transition as easy and painless as possible. "
This kind of thing is used in a lot more than just matchbox-sized servers. I've seen folks putting Linux-based systems inside vending machines (probably with the intention of having them notify the supplier when low), and that certainly doesn't require the kind of power and cost associated with more "modern" processors.
Embedded software and hardware ends up a lot more places than most folks expect.
I work at a place that is shipping products with embedded 68hc11 (8 bit!), with 80186, and with 80386 processors.
Why? Because they do the job at a decent price. Would we love to use a big, better, faster processor? Yep. But we need to keep price down, and in some cases, keep power way down. Like getting several days use out of batteries, or getting a product with an 'intrinsically safe' rating. This is not 'explosion proof' (contain any spark or blow-up inside the case) but 'can't even make a spark'.
Our ideal processor, just like everyone else's dream, would be infinitely fast/powerful, use no power, and cost nothing. Since that doesn't exist, choices get made. Sometimes an older x86 is the right choice.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Dysan2k:
Thank you so much for the logic-free post. Made my day.
This doesn't have anything to do with people using newly fabricated 486 chips for firewalls or word processor PC's or linux machines.
This is about manufacturers of imbedded devices that use x86 processors. They don't go on eBay to "score 20 486's for under $100." They buy 1000's direct from AMD to go into their custom-designed heart monitors, process-control computers and the like.
Get a clue.
>I'm glad to see them cut off manufacturing just so they can start back producing even faster chips to catch back up with Intel.
So happy for you.
I'd add that power consumption plays a key role. The older processors have less transistors, and use less power when produced using the same process.
"Clones" are not always exactly alike the object that is being cloned. If they are the same exact things, then who cares if AMD stops making them, just buy from intel
~ now you know
I would imagine this is the reason AMD have packed it in. The revenue stream from low end embedded x86 processors is likely to be significantly lower than if they used the facility to churn out top end chips while they have the ascendency in market share. Make hay while the sun shines, and all that. looking at www.amd.com reveals: http://www.amd.com/news/corppr/21111.html "When it announced first quarter results on April 18, AMD projected that second quarter sales could decline by as much as 10 percent. " OK, now where's the rot, and where's it not? "Today the company said that, despite continuing weak PC market conditions and very aggressive pricing by Intel Corporation, the company achieved record unit sales of AMD Athlon(TM) processors, record unit sales of AMD Duron(TM) processors, and record aggregate PC processor unit sales, demonstrating the breadth, strength and competitiveness of its PC processor product line." OK, It's not in the high end PC processor market, that's looking good... Let's skip a week ahead, in the actual Q2 reports: "Weakness in the communications and networking sectors continues to impact the company's foundry services and other IC products, and the company projects that these revenues will continue to decline in the third quarter." So it looks like they've decided to cut their losses here and apply the resources to making what's selling best, and grabbing the headlines. Chris.
Going on means going far, going far means returning. Tao te Ching
Perhaps there's even a market in this. Instead of buying brand-new CPUs in volume -- why not hit ebay and recycle the old shit?
ISA has no quite left the box yet. Granted, you no longer see any ISA slots on the newer motherboards, but a lot of periphrails still run on the bus. (Check your BIOS, you still see options in there don't you).. PS/2, the serial and parallel ports, ye ole school keyboard (AT-style) port, I think even USB? Maybe with this new PCI 3, ISA will get phased into non-existence, and old PCI will take it's place. No wonder computers are still only jumping to higher speeds at a slow rate... getting the timing right so the ISA bus can still work correctly is um... not fun. (for those of you who've had problems overclocking, but couldn't figure out why... excluding heat problems... this might be the culprit.) Anyways... on to another article.
Oh god... not again.
I believe that there are some pagers, bluetooth maybe, that use 386s and possibly 486 in them.
m.kelley
life is like a freeway, if you don't look you could miss it.
First off thies were not PC chips they were for the embeded matket! Their is a K6E that can be run for hours off a AA battery but they coust just as much to make as the K6-2/3E's thus it makes sence to drop the older lines.
You can build little robots or task specific operations very cheaply when CPU cycles are not that of a concern. I'm not going to put a k7-1.4 ghz athlon in a processor to blink my Christmas lights(a 486 is probably overkill here too.) 486s are cheap and provide enough cpu cycles to do those tasks. It is generally cheaper and quicker then rewriting your own digital logic and then burning it on maybe 20 programmable chips.
Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
I've gotten a couple of these e-mails - full test of the e-mail is pasted below.
This is a test of the AMD emergency broadcast message. This is only a test. If this had been an actual email, you door would have been kicked in by federal agents, your AMD CPU's would have been confiscated, and you would have been arrested for violation of the DMCA. We now return you to your regularly scheduled email.
486? We are still scrambling to pick up every 286 we can lay our hands on for molding equipment at a client of ours..
Death and poverty like me so much, they've brought friends!
As long as they don't stop production on their flagship processor....
The Intel 386EX is a great alternative to other, more specialized processors for embedded aplications. All of the development tools are easily available, the processor is relativly inexpensive. That and there is the ease of working and debugging on a PC without needing to cross-compile and emulate.
Those are basically the reasons that my team chose the 386EX in a pc104 for our embedded application (a custom controller for an electrical engineering senior project) Jim
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
The original NES used the 6502 chip too and yes, the Atari did use the 6502.
A 1khz chip running with 2k of memory would be overkill for blinking lights. I used to program in Assembly and one of those things I used to do was take my 386 and blink lights with it. I had to literally eat 99% of my CPU cycles so you could actually see the stupid things blink in the pattern. It's a childs toy now but it was still fun.
Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
The point is that they are no longer going to make that archetecture of chip. Instead they are preparing to make a new archetecture for those chips and to continue support for the new one's long into the future. The AMD Athlon is a great chip, still people still use the older K6...whatever.
Intel may get more customers.
that AMD isn't really making enough money off the sales of these older chips, to make it worthwhile to them to continue production at the lost opportunity cost of using those production facilities that could be making newer, more profitable chips instead.
That's the bottom line.
What we are starting to see in the embedded market though is more use of embedding the processing core in an FPGA. If you only need 386/486 performance you can easily slot in an 8, 16 or even 32bit RISC core onto your FPGA, it might only take up a quarter of a decent sized one, add the your other logic to the rest of the FPGA. The only difference might be that you will be using a larger FPGA than you would have before (more gates, more interface pins for the cpu's memory and i/o busses). You don't then have to worry about your processor being obsoleted, only your FPGA (which you would have had to worry about anyway).
Mark..........
--
If the world were an oyster, it would be mine.......
Probably because they're fast enough to do the task required for many embedded applications, and they require significantly less power than a Pentium class chip.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
It's exactly for that reason: the price.
If you put in more horsepower than you need, you're wasting millions of dollars across hundreds of thousands of units. Across millions of units, its worth it to have engineers shave out a few pennies here and there.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Yes, this will have some impact on the x86 embedded market, but on the embedded market as a whole? I think not.
I prefer to play asteroids on my ATM's MGA.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The email says AMD is stopping production, but I wonder if they are altogether scrapping the production lines, or if someone else (maybe in a 3rd-world country) could purchase the lines and resume production. Wasn't production of the Mini passed around similarly? I guess more details will be fleshed out later.
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
SIMM memory isn't getting cheaper either, if you haven't notices.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Why not use something older? Something like the Z80 family of processors? They've been making those for AGES! The Z380 even has 32-bit addressing.
Yes it is. Crux Broker in Helsinki, Finland are selling K6-2+:s for some 550 FIM (0.90 ). I'm guessing they are not the only one in the world doing it. Concidering you can get these babys to run at 600Mhz (2,0 (or 2,1) core voltage, check if your MB supports this before buying) on a 100Mhz FSB system (2X multiplier translates to 6x) they may be just the right upgrade to all these K6-2:s in the hands of the poor students of the world..
A lot of people have said things like "x86 isn't used that much for embedded programming anyway," and that's clearly false.
Generally, the trend in the embedded -- specifically automation and control -- markets, is to move from expensive and non-forward-compatible ASICs and SH processors and the MIPS series to x86 processors. Why, you ask? Because x86-based PLCs can be programmed using a standard compiler, instead of a special cross-compiler like the Green Hill Compiler (which costs a lot).
Did I mention the cross-compilers for SH/MIPS/etc cost a *lot*?
By using x86 one COTS compilers. Conceivably, if you're using COTS equipment for the buses (standard UART, etc.) you could compile applications and OS using VC++, gcc, Turbo C, etc. x86 for embedded/PLC might seem braindead, but the cost savings outweigh the programmer's headache. This is especially true if you're running in real mode and don't have to worry about segmented memory (no matter; most embedded x86 programmers just initialize the segment registers to the same value and the offset registers to MAXINT and in doing so, get a flat memory model)
In addition, x86 is the primary target of VxWorks, UC/OS, and other off-the-shelf operating systems. The advantage to using 3rd party operating systems is, you don't have to spend time and money designing your own to find it incompatible along your product line -- especially if the low end of your product line is an SH processor and the high end is a pentium III. By using x86 for the embedded market, you can cash in on standardized, third party OSes and not have to worry about backwards/forwards compatibility.
So now that I've finished ranting about how x86 is a big cost saver, let's talk about why 486-K6 is important (from AMD's point of view). Let's face it. You couldn't use the athlon to power ANY industrial or consumer appliance -- unless you're talking about an oven. My athlon 1400 hits 55C and that's WITH a FOP38 cooler and four case fans. Air flow issues I may have aside, this is clearly unacceptable for thermostat controls, or assembly line mechanisms, or automotive controls, or space shuttle computers, or smart refrigerators, et al. By having a low-power K6-II (my laptop uses a K6-II/400 and it runs pretty damn cool) one can get optimum performance at a low cost, using very little power. Combine the "low cost/low power draw/reasonable performance" benefit with the "standardized OS/save costs on cross-compilers" benefit and you can see why x86 is compelling for embedded control applications.
Personally, if this is true (I've seen no announcement from AMD proper, only from this forwarded memo), I think it's going to be a big hit for AMD and other companies alike. It's going to be a big hit for AMD because they're going to lose money on a big, if unsexy market (embedded is FAR more important than PCs now, and in the future will be more so). It's going to be a big hit for embedded programmers because Intel will have a monopoly on the x86 embedded market. As more and more managers decide to move from SH/MIPS/Zilog/whatever to x86 so that they can cross-compile from COTS compilers, they're going to be pushing more money into Intel's hands. Intel can then reasonably do some serious price gouging, claiming "it takes extra effort to keep these 386E, etc plants open" even though the plants are a 'sunk cost' in terms of capital.
Well, the men in white coats are ranting... and they have blue faces?
(three tones)
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
what would really be nice is if the big chip makers stopped trying to go for "bigger and faster" and instead develop a line of chips that focuses only on "better and cheaper."
Isn't that what AMD are doing with the Athlons? Slower than the P4 in terms of MHz, but more bang for your buck by a long way.
Well. I know that 486's are still being used for firewalls and such, and the 586 market is still being used as a desktop for those who just do word processing and such. Linux has really allowed people to reuse their old equipment, but face it. Many can go to Flea markets and Marketpro shows to pick up old equipment for pennies on the dollar, and others can sit on eBay and score 20 486's for under $100.
It's just in what you like. I'm glad to see them cut off manufacturing just so they can start back producing even faster chips to catch back up with Intel. Maybe we can even see AMD pushing out those 760MP chipsets too!!
-What have you contributed lately?
And (in applications where it matters) they produce much less heat.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
CT also made a weird beast called MegaFrame. Started out as an 80186-based LAN server (Ethernet? What's Ethernet? Network was an RS-422 daisy chain.) that could be expanded in a modular fashion to some ungodly number of CPUs. Then somebody decided the same box could host a 68010-based "application procesor", and it was CT's chance to break into the Unix marketplace. System admin was much fun: you had to know both Unix and CTOS, the proprietary OS that ran on the 80186 boards. And you thought configuring Win 2K was complicated!
You'd be amazed how many classic arcade games from the early 80's use Z80s. I'm just getting started collecting and already have four machines that use them. The newest of my bunch is probably Gorf, from 1981.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
"Crotchety Old Man: What's that? I can't buy radio tubes at this drugstore anymore?" No, but many are still in production, and available at your local music store or audiophile shop. "Sorry, guys. It's the inevitable march of progress." Old parts are easier to buy than many newer ones. Last year's IC is hard to find, but something that has been in production for 10 years often has enough usage to keep it going. Note that Slot 1 Celerons went away long before 386's. Specialized parts have short lives, general purpose parts stay around.
I'm not sure if AMD's x86 licence permits that - I think they mentioned a limit of at most 20% shipments from external fabs in the last contract.
Crotchety Old Man: What's that? I can't buy radio tubes at this drugstore anymore? What'd you do with the tester? This is preposterous, let me speak to the manager!
Sorry, guys. It's the inevitable march of progress.
(Note that, in this case, I turned to the old man, asked him what kind of tube he needed for his old radio, and gave him one from my collection of over 20,000 old radio, TV and industrial tubes.)
You guys in embedded systems have it tough trying to predict the long-term availability of parts for a system that may have cost millions to develop. But you've always predicted pretty well in the past: There's a Z80 in my microwave, which is two years old.
New 486s will always be available somewhere, whether as more clones like AMD, or as new old stock collecting in warehouses.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I've developed a note-taking application for my company. Although it's fairly portable, right now we only target DOS. Why DOS? Because there are a number of industrial-strength handheld computers which run DOS on top of an embedded x86 processor. They're exactly what you want in the middle of a corn field in November.
The current handhelds we're buying are made by Juniper Systems. They're AMD 486s with 16MB RAM which can dual-boot DOS and WinCE. They're $2500 a pop. They're waterproof. They're damn near drop-proof. They've got heaters on the LCD screen so they can be used outside in freezing temperatures.
By using x86 procs and OSes, one can use existing apps with them and use standard development tools to create new apps (and develop and test on a desktop system!). These types of computers are not revised too often. I'm sure my company won't be affected too much by this, but it is something for me to worry about, and for our supplier to work out. The embedded market may be contracting because of the networking slowdown, but there's still demand for old AMD 486s, nonetheless.
Jon
OH THE HORROR!! They still even make 486 chips? I guess for smaller devices, but these days people use things like... i forget, the ones with the Z... I am not an engineer!
VIA's MediaGX processor is fairly popular in the embedded market... As far as the WinChip, I was under the impression these things were completely gone, but I could be wrong.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
One - if you're going to need more of these chips, order now. That reminds me, need to order a couple Pentium II 450s, now that they've hit the sweet spot on the price curve.
... wait for it ... Open Source. Because, as we all learned with IE, you can't beat free (with marketing dollars thrown in).
Two - AMD is girding for war with Intel, as Intel announced it's going to fight for the low-cost chip prices. This is why competition is good. And this is why MSFT being a monopoly means the only effective competition is
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
To a person who upgrades their computer every five years, this is only a selling point if they believe you. :)
Why not use a Z80 derivative? Good question - primarily, it's because there are tradeoffs to consider. An embedded 8-bit MCU (such as a PIC or a Z80 system) is great for low-level, real-time hardware control, especially when your user I/O doesn't need to be more complicated than a ten-key pad and a 2-line LCD display. However, in applications (such as scientific equipment, for instance) where your user needs to be able to navigate a full 640x480 graphics display, enter complex alphanumeric data, then export megabytes of raw data to a desktop PC for in-depth analysis, a 386/486-based PC running DOS or Linux offers you a much easier development environment.
Yeah, I'll bet that the Atari Jaguar with it's dual Motorola 68k based processors really helped keep the PowerPC crank along.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
This company I buy a lot of commodity equipment from, Computer Surplus Outlet (http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com for the goatse.cx-paranoid), carries 4 or 5 different speeds of the Intel 486 still. The only time I ever bought one was to replace one in an old machine, but I can't imagine you'd have much problem building a new system around one...
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
I can't see any serious company buying used chips for use in an embedded systems target if they could in any way avoid it (even reengineering, as expensive as that is). One of the primary requirements of any embedded product is reliability -- and anyhow, the packaging (and energy requirements) for the original release-versions are generally very different from the smaller, more efficient embedded versions.
I would think if this were the end of the world for the embedded market that Texas Instruments, Motorola, Sony would not be options. The first thought that came to me was what about hypertransport? Is that not planned/aimed at most of the markets they are concerned about...not just the embedded space, but the server/workstation arena? Also, would it not be easy to re-tool a duron/athlon chip by itself, under clocked (shudder...more powerrrr!!!) an most likely cachless? I mean a full blown processor is not needed, but more than the average IC is? Maybe my perspective is skewed, but I am sure the "moving forward" phrase would enter the picture sooner or later. Moose. What is loose at the moment, alex?
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
Either mod this guy as +1 Funny, or -1 Totally Clueless.
I think is was a logical step to stop pruducing K6 and older CPU's, for as far a I know there will be a special version of the Duron (don't ask me about the name of this new think) for the embedded market. Furthermore I don't share the opinion that INTEL will gain a greater market share, for Athlon Systems are superior to Intels PIII and even the P4. A port of Athlon / Duron Technology would only ensure competition, giving us, the customers a greater variety of GOOD and FAST (nobody wants to be second in this competition) CPS to shoose from
all your crappy cpu belong to us
".Sig Stealer" was here
Honestly, what next? The K6-2E+1 and the K6-IIIE++-frog-knows?
Concept - call the Intel beater they come out with next an AMD Frog - "it's lean, it's green, and it goes faster than the snake in the grass Intel chip"
[caveat - I'm biased, I own AMD and TMTA shares]
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I've gotten a couple of these e-mails - full test of the e-mail is pasted below. At first glance, it seemed a sort of well, of course, but this will have an impact on the embedded market.
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3........
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 277165 hours , 46 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Perhaps slow by todays standard, but they are a proven workhorse in the embedded world... And for those who will say ' they still make them that &**#'.. you can still buy a brand spanking new 8031, for the same reasons.. Just like DOS.. there IS a market.. a rather huge one actually. Ever hear of a PLC? Or do you drive a car made by an industrial controller?? Or eat ? :)
I remember the 34010. A fun little chip. I particularly liked the host interface registers!
TI also provided a library for those who did want to use the graphics capability. It came in source code form. This library had errors in it (it wouldn't work right if compiled with the optimizer on).
They also had a font library and a CCITT Group IV Fax library.
I remember the bit addressing. It took a while to get used to opcodes being on mod 8 addresses. The other thing that the 340x0 (I used the 34020, too) had was that you could specify two specific word sizes (anywhere from 1 to 32 bits), so you could move, say, 17 bits in a single pop. Weird...
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Anybody who has been awake for the last 6 months knows that fab 25 was slated to move over to other produces. Listen to the conference calls for the past 2 quarters...
Sex is heriditary, if your parents didn't have it chances are good you won't either.
doesnt VIA also sell their cyrix 3 chip(c3)?
...the subject shouldn't be "AMD", but "It's funny, laugh"
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
I understand that there is still a market for lower - speed (low-cost;low-powered) processors in the embedded market, but the embedded market upgrades, too.
This is nothing more than concession that they will stop making products that are obsolete NOW...in 10 months. Why is this an issue?
That might be an ok view in the home-PC market, but the point was that this move affects the embedded market. The goal of that market is smaller, cheaper, lower power. One motivation to use the 486 might be extremely low engineering costs. Vendors like AmPro (among others) will sell a single-board PC; that might be a good solution if lots of existing code and hardware can be used to save engineering time. Although Megatouch XL uses fancier hardware today, a few years ago many of the bartop touch-screen poker games were using those older 486 processors.
I agree, the AMD 486 disappearing probably really doesn't hurt anything except the x86 embedded market which is fairly small anyway. 68k, MPC8xx, or especially 8051 disappearing would be more devastating (and foolish since they generate tons of sales). However, since theres no reason to change, except the parts going out of production, change really isn't "for the best"
Embedded applications need single-purpose, low-cost, low-power, fast time-to-market, small-footprint solutions. If the 486 is able to run that dishwasher or microwave effectively, your "out with the old in with the new" attitude will only pass on added cost to the consumer.
Lucent's Wavepoint II wireless access point uses AMD 486's (586's in the newest models i think) for it's processor. Along with the Apple Airport and the similar Lucent Residential Gateway. I'm not certain but I believe the Linksys cable modem routers use them too. This announcement is alot bigger than many might think right off the bat....
But what if they could make more cash off of the other chips? ok do this, look at the amount made off of the old chips. Then look at the amount they make off of the new chips. then subtract the cost of making a new production line from the proit from the old chips. If they are still in the black from the old chips AFTER making a new production line then it is a smart move to keep the old line. If not then it is cheeper tto dump the old chip and replace it with the newer one.
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
Heh, those I-Opener thingies that everyone used to love to get had a winchip 180 in em.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
What? You suggest Intel taking over the AMD's plants? Non stop violence, the beat of the cascades... MAKE IT STOP!
:)
A note along those same lines, the university I has an online history of the servers and technology they've used over the years. It turns out that the chip that was the processor in the email system 20 years ago, is now running my calculator.
Submerged in mineral oil? What the hell were you doing?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Who's going to volunteer to go out there and do the next upgrade?
They seem to gunk up with dust and die at least every 6 months to a year of continuous operation. Where are these fanless Transmeta chips that were supposed to be comperable in speed to desktop machines?
The link in that story now leads to a porn site...
"The Intel® 186 processor is the original member of the Intel Architecture family." I guess all those IBM 5150 PC's and XTs used AMD chips. ;)
Go zig!
If you're doing something like controlling a VCR, a sprinkler system, TV channel changer, a thermostat, a stereo, or numerous other tasks a processor like that might be a bit too powerful. Zilog and others are still making bank off of 8bit processors.
I'm not sure how much this will matter, there are more than a few companies making cheap x86 clones and hopefully what will happen is pentium class chips will fill in the low end and become cheaper but AMD is making a statement about where they see their growth and future profit coming from. AMD also made a solid performing clone, you could count in Intel matching performance from their parts which was nice for some "embedded tasks" but it is definitely a split, on one hand they are making the fastest desktop CPU in the world and on the other they're trying to sell CPUs for pennies.
With all the embedded linux stuff going on and all the talk I've been expecting more internet appliances, more CPUs in more things, more smart toys and devices. Now that the economy is slipping a little that stuff may have to wait and this could be AMDs way of weathering the storm if they think people won't have as much disposable income for high priced electronic toys.
If only the various users had banded together with the vast Free Chip community, this sort of thing would never happen.
Just imagine patent free, fast embedded processors available Free to all members of the community!
The post I am responding to is a troll, but it brings up a few things.
Believe it or not "Free Chips" do exist: the OpenCores project. They have some serious designs, including an ARM-ish core. The downside to this: you need FPGAs to implement these in relatively small quantities, and they don't come cheap.
Ian
The point is that the old processors used a fraction of the power that new ones do and why start using an expensive (relatively) duron when you could get a 486 for a couple bucks.
If you're using a duron for something that could be processed on a 486 then they had better release seti for the embedded device or that's a lot of wasted processing power... Oh wait, even with Seti it's a lot of wasted processing power.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
. . . that is is important for companies to phase out their old product lines in favor of newer, more usable technologies. It is hard for the consumers, as they are the party who must then buy the new things, but in the long run it is quite good for the industry. Without the phase out of, let's say ISA (tantamount to the 486 with regard to speed, etc) we would not have the faster, better, and cheaper products we have today. The old standards get in the way of the new, and for that reason alone should they be phased out. Of course, change is difficult, but often for the best.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
If so, why still produce the old 486s? Or does the AMD plant just have the old machinery just sitting on the workshop floor and it's nigh-time to junk the archaic production devices like so many Xoom pages?
Or are all the x86 chipsets produced on the same machines, and they are only tossing one and replacing it with a new generation that no longer supports the 486 chipset.
Why is it when I hit ^R that ZSH calls me a cocksucker?
Z80. I've got a rather beat up TI-85
This looked to be the one upgrade for an old 66 Mhz series 7 motherboard that would have made sense, avoiding the slow main memory with a 400 Mhz on-die L2 cache. But the chips seemed to disappear almost as soon as AMD announced them.
Does anybody know of anywhere where they can still be found ?
(I believe the embedded chips have the same pinouts as the original and the mobile versions, but I could be wrong).
WHY are they re-tooling? More Athlons or Hammer time?
Actually this is bad news, because the 486 were proven designs that really worked and also were very affordable. I find it very nauseating that it's the manufacturer that drives the market when it should really be the other way around.
You wouldn't use a 6502 to blink lights because it needs external ram and rom and additional logic just to run.
However, it makes total sense to use a motorola 68HC08 or a Microchip PIC chip even though they are faster processors than the 6502 - as these things will do the job with no additional support circuitry except a voltage regulator and an oscillator, and of course transistors to drive your blinkin lights. These chips are also CHEAPER than your lights too. Who cares then if they are overkill? They fit the requirements nicely!
Back on topic, this news from AMD is just a reminder that you have to be very very careful about which companies products you design into your embedded devices - unless you don't mind redesigning your products every year! Motorola and Microchip are my favourites because they have a huge investment and commitment to the embedded market. They will give you very early notice when they plan to retire a product line. And when they do, they usually have a very near replacement available and will give you deals to buy enough of the old product before it is gone so you can still sell products while you gear up for the new one.
Intel is good for this as well for their embedded products. I personally would stay away from Cyrix and AMD now.
--jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
I guess now the embedded market will have to dig its 486s out of the garbage like the rest of us...
If you're doing something like controlling a VCR, a sprinkler system, TV channel changer, a thermostat, a stereo, or numerous other tasks a processor like that might be a bit too powerful. Zilog and others are still making bank off of 8bit processors.
Most of the applications you cited barely even need the performance of an 8088. As you hinted, often tasks like this are left to microcontrollers with specialized hardware built-in to the central chip to minimize the chip count, improve reliability, use less power, etc.
Some chips I use only consume one millionth of an amp when it goes to sleep, and unlike desktop systems, they don't wake up groggy or screw up something during the wake-up process.
I had to look twice to see that Taco had corrupted Hemos.
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
This is almost a year away, and I would imagine that they can get pretty close to 100% yields on these things by now even if operating at full capacity. And it's not like it costs anything to warehouse a few thousand of the things (a decent file cabnet goes for a couple hundred bucks), so these embedded guys should't have any troubles.
I almost expect that Hitachi might be more focused on getting their own SH architecture (nifty stuff -- some of the better features from mips and ppc) off the ground before messing with more x86 stuff.
Shouldn't they worry more about EM fields. I lost my HD twice because I had my speakers too close to my computer(I didn't figure it out the first time until I started playing around and put one on my only speakers on my monitor and got that distorted fuzzy magnetic look.) Anyways, the chips have to still work after a nuclear disaster where all humanity gets wiped out but computers can still run boughts in Q3.
As you notice, this is not a serious response.
Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
WTF?!!!
Are you an idiot or what?!!!
The AMD 486, 586 and K6 lines are work-alike clones of the corresponding Intel designs. WTF would Intel care about picking up AMD's defunct designs when it already has it's own versions?
Actually, NASA uses the old stuff because of radiation. My roommate works for the IUCF and they have NASA out every few months for radiation effect testing on all kinds of computer equipment.
I have great faith in fools - self confidence my friends call it. - Edgar Allan Poe
If you custom-built a board, and the chip you built it around is suddenly unavailable, yes, you have a problem. It's mighty hard to just drop in a different part in this (very common) case.
Unless you're designing small computers that are supposed to run some variant of windoze.
Real OS's are more flexible when it comes to changing chip architectures. Frankly, a StrongARM is a hell of a lot more powerful than a 486.
This shouldn't really affect any real small systems' design options. It will certainly inconvenience a few firms, but not for long. They should have expected this to happen. Only fools rely on single sources for parts.
What does it mean? It means that pricewatch.com is your friend.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
>But technology is getting better all the time. If you wanted to build a low-performance, 386-class processor these days, you could do even better than running an outdated design.
He is talking about electrical power consumption and heat generation. Something undesirable in a little aluminum box that has to be sealed from the environment around it.
If you're doing something like controlling a VCR, a sprinkler system, TV channel changer, a thermostat, a stereo, or numerous other tasks a processor like that might be a bit too powerful.
There are more powerful things than that powered by a 386-class processor.
I used to work at a company that made high-end infrared equipment - the type of stuff you see on Cops or see featured on those shows on Fox (you know, "World's Wildest Police Chases 9"). Their high-end gimbal unit, the balls that are mounted on helicopters, used 386 processors.
And these units were _certainly_ magnitudes more complex than a VCR remote or stereo.
I believe the Blackberry RIM devices have a 386 in them. I can't say for sure if they are intel.
ostiguy
486 and 586-class general-purpose processors are probably fine things to develop and test embedded applications with (to a point) but I doubt they're a great long-term choice, I'm guessing this will only impact people who deserve it.
AC's cheerfully ignored
Other news:
Rambus being spanked by a few shareholder lawsuits, in what is now a two fronted war.
One group's representation
Another group, lead plaintiff The Teachers' Retirement System of Louisiana
Yet another in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
Yet another in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
Their latest Quarterly Report from EDGAR Online, speaks optimistically of impending legal successes.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Will they replace them with embedded Athlons? Maybe Geforce will get into the embedded game? Not to flame, but maybe this means we'll soon have ATM's with antialiasing, antioscopic filtering and radiosity lighting.
Z80? (TI-85/86) or 68000? (TI-89/92)
Just curious...
Uh, no. Beyond a certain age, older, slower chips actually get more expensive. It's the R&D cost of re-engineering the entire product that stops companies from putting in more modern (high volume, cheaper) hardware.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Intel may perhaps use these plants for producing alpha chips!
Even better, they could be producing chips together! Living like a happy family!!!
Like, like the Flinstones, of sorts. Or, perhaps better more like the Jetsons! Wouldn't it great! Every chips on Earth could be produced there. Even old ones. Perhaps even some obscure collector's item from the early seventies!
Peace be with you!
And, that industry usually guarantees you replacement parts for some five to ten years.
You'll stop laughing at eight-bitters when you get stuck in an elevator...
Sure, AMD is probably doing it to make more money, but as long as they keep making processors that make the boys at Intel sweat, I say more power to them.
BTW, one of my best friends works for Intel in quality control in processor manufacturing, and he is pissed at me for having an AMD900, 650, and Duron700. :-)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
ROFL! Mod this sucker up!
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
You've forgotten the fundamental purpose of a company: to make money. These aren't charitable organizations. They live by supply and demand.
The old standards get in the way of the new, and for that reason alone should they be phased out.
The old standards are far cheaper than the new (one of the first posts is a joke about 486s going for $3, but he's making a good point indirectly). Without the profit margin of using the older technology, the money for research and testing of new products would barely exist for many companies. They must strike a balance between offering new, expensive products, or older, cheaper *and sufficient* technologies. Not every embedded product needs the speed of an Athlon.
Developers: We can use your help.
Not cutting edge fast by a long shot and will never compete with GHz ships, but pretty much covers the low end of the CPU market.
Well, they are so cheap because there is lower demand, because the costs of the production line have been amortized, and because the profit margins are lower. The only thing that has kept the manufacturer from upgrading is the capital investment. Nice deal for you, but it can't last forever.
Power. Compare the latest generation of 386 CPUs to even a slow PII. HUUUGE difference here.
But technology is getting better all the time. If you wanted to build a low-performance, 386-class processor these days, you could do even better than running an outdated design.
Board space. The embedded 386's are a little bigger than an american nickle. Pentium class CPU's... well... are big.
See above: the old chip may satisfy your needs, but with new technology, you can do even better.
Longevity. When we bought these, we got committments from our suppliers that the CPU would be around for at least X months/years. This is REALLLLY important to us.
Unless you get contractual commitments from your vendor and you are willing to pay for it, you can't expect this. If it is "REALLLLY" important for you, you can pay for it.
Intel is still supporting and selling 80186 CPU's, for embedded controller uses.
And doubtlessly, Intel customers are paying for the privilege, and probably, these are actually revised designs produced with new facilities. Motorola is also still shipping embedded 68000 chips.
Basically, people who complain about this sort of thing expect their vendor to pay the opportunity cost of continuing to produce outdated chips. Sorry, but you can't expect that.
If you want low power, you have to pay for it. If you want a long-lived product line, you have to pay for it. If you want both, you have to pay for both. If some manufacturer like AMD happens to squeeze some cheap desktop chips from an aging production line that meet your needs, count your blessings, use it, and don't expect it to last. After all, you probably prefer AMD to stay in business, right? If they subsidize your products by keeping an unprofitable production line around, they won't.
Of course, what you might do is suggest to AMD that you are willing to pay a significantly higher price for their chips.
Did I mention the cross-compilers for SH/MIPS/etc cost a *lot*?
Hiya. I work for MontaVista Software. We publish a linux-based cross-development kit which targets (among other things) several varieties each of mips, SH, ARM, PPC and x86. We use the GNU tools -- gcc, gdb and kin -- on all of these, and in most cases few bugfixes and changes are needed.
In any event, the tools we work with and publish are free. Getting a full copy of our cross-development kit (which comes with lots of nifty target apps, and good phone support, and whatnot) is liable to cost a fair bit, but (being that it's mostly GPLed) you get the rights to make your own modifications, redistribute and so forth.
Interestingly enough, not one of the targets we've got here that I've tested on has been based on AMD chips. We had Athlon support internally some time back (some of the "embedded" systems we work with are actually fairly beefy) but it's been dropped for whatever reason. Draw your own conclusions....
In any event, quality cross-compilers for odd platforms aren't really all that hard to come by.
Replace the microdrive with flash and you'd go from "almost" silent to completely so, and have a solid-state (and thus more reliable) system as an extra bonus. This wouldn't be suitable for a web server, but it'd handle Squid (presuming you've plenty of RAM), NAT and firewall without issues, and rebooting it would always put it back to the last state you flashed it into.
As for web services, the content could either be off a microdrive (and they are damn quiet) or remote-mounted (with Squid doing a reverse-proxy for your webserver, frequently accessed pages could be stored locally, in RAM). Of course, this latter bit presumes you've got another machine stowed away elsewhere.
If you're looking at an example (boot sequence info &c) for how a flash-based Linux system works, the iPaq is perhaps one of the ones with better publicly-available documentation.
What this says is AMD's old product lines are not making enough money compared to reutilizing their us$1,000,000,000++ fabrication facility for newer devices. They apparently have decided that a non-slashdot concept called Return on Investment is maximized if they phase out the old lines.
There are few companies in the world that can caugh up the $1,200,000,000 to $1,400,000,000 to build a new fab manufacturing building and AMD obviously wants to do this as infrequently as possible.
Too bad! The AMD K6 line was practically what braught AMD back from the edge of extinction and allowed them to produce the very competitive follow-ons.
-- Multics
I've been told before that K6-2's were not in stock because they weren't being produced anymore... and now I find out that they just halted the 486's?!?
The K6-2's that are in stock seem so damn cheap... how do they manage to charge anything at all on their 486's that they only just halted?
If one more cloobie responds with "They make 486's still??? HOW STUPID LOLOLOL.", I swear I will throw my junk in their general direction.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Until recently, they had a couple of choices and if they wanted PC-like for varying reasons, they had to choose between a 486 or a Laptop/Hostile environment Pentium class CPU. If the app could be handled by a 486, you'd use a 486 because of the lower dissipation and cost.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I would also think that if there were significant revenues comming in from these old processors, they would license the manufacture of them out to someone else to produce. Chip makers in general got hit hard by this latest economic downturn, so I would think there is production capacity available somewhere if the demand were there.
It looks like AMD is letting Intel support all the nitches, while they go after the mainstream market for a change.
What about the old winchips or cyrix chips? These were x86 clones as well and I'm sure VIA or whoever owns them now would love to fill a market like that.
Awwwwww you poor anonymous baby you! Sounds like you are a little bit upset over this aren't ya? Awwwwwwww
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
it would be a shame, that chips is the best processor I have ever had, I've put it through hell and back and it just keeps pumping away. It's the chip I use in most of my projects where damaging the processor and mother board are most likely to happen, it even spent three months submerged in mineral oil as a router. They just don't make chips like that anymore.
Just because AMD stops producing them, doesn't mean these chips cannot be produced with a profit. I guess AMD just figures they can get a HIGHER profit by producing more advanced microprocessorts.
That being said, the industry should really concentrate on processor technologies with a lower power consumption. Not that the utility bills will be that much lower, but rather to improve battery life on handheld embedded devices. It's GOTTA be more expensive to have the increased maintenance costs of having two staffs of software engineers (one for each platform), then a few more bucks per unit..
Of course, I'm not an embedded expert..
Stop the brainwash
I'm an AMD K6 Junkie... Someone asked about where to find the High end K6 processors. www.computeradjusters.com sells K6-IIIE+ processors for use in home systems.
If I'm not mistaken, NASA gets it's CPUs from a custom fab process to rad harden them. AFAIK Intel gave NASA a licence to use the 486 and early Pentium technology for free.
I work at a place that is shipping products with embedded 68hc11
:)
:)
<p>Heh, the 68hc11 - that is what I used in an autonomous robot I built for an engineering project. I still have a few of these at home, and I can still remmeber how to write HC11 assembly
<p>Interesting to see someone is actually using these things in the real world
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
You joke about this, but there are similar such projects.
http://www.opencores.org/
http://www.free-ip.com/
Nerds, brush up on your VHDL and get crackin'.
> but this will have an impact on the embedded market.
And every industry in the world, unless someone still gets paid to build PC's. Really though, Intel was first in embedded systems so they won that game long before AMD dropped K6. Transmeta of course... what was Transmeta anyway?
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
And on top of that, play a good game of Quake too!
I can only imagine the frustration of people waiting in line, while the college student who can't afford his own Geforce has finished playing Unreal Tournament on the ATM. (Online through it's POTS/ISDN connection, mind you!)
When you rely on closed-source, proprietary vendors for critical applications.
If only the various users had banded together with the vast Free Chip community, this sort of thing would never happen.
Just imagine patent free, fast embedded processors available Free to all members of the community!
Who is going to join me in the new GNU/MAFFTP (Microprocessors Are Free For The People) project?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
When my old Cyrix machine burnt out long ago, I was very much in need of a good, cheap, not very fast chip to replace my now dead machine. However, I came to realize that finding old machines like that is nearly as expensive as getting something like a used Celeron or other machine these days.
Which, in a way sucks. No reason in going for overkill. But then I also realized, it can't be much cheaper for chip makers to keep making these slower chips. They have to use the same techniques that they used awhile back, which does cost them money. So, once all R&D costs are out of the way, in a way, it does become reasonable to just stop making the slower chips.
However, what would really be nice is if the big chip makers stopped trying to go for "bigger and faster" and instead develop a line of chips that focuses only on "better and cheaper." I have tons of uses for 300MHz machines, but if a 300MHz machine costs the same as a 600+, what's the point? It'd be nice if someone actually designed consumer chips with the intent of being cheap instead of bigger.
Oddly, this reminds me of American Cars vs European Cars for some reason.
Companies who have spent millions of dollars designing and testing an embedded device running on a rock solid, low power 25Mhz SX 486 don't want to go through the whole process again to upgrade their boards (different pins, more power) or even to put in a faster 486 (you might have to actually cripple your application to keep its execution speed constant).
The cost of the CPU isn't really the issue (you often pay more for older, slower chips!), it's the associated re-development cost that keeps the demand for old chips going.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
In the desktop PC market, AMD had basically replaced the K6 with Duron, and they'd done the same with the recent mobile Athlon and Duron products for laptops. I suspect they just weren't seeing a lot of demand for the older classes of processor anymore (or at least not enough to justify a fab anymore), and decided to let Intel service the low-end embedded market instead. A year-plus for a transition period isn't too bad, though companies making medical products that use embedded AMD would want more (I believe changes like that have to be certified, and that takes time/money).
Given that AMD has only a fraction of Intel's resources, that's probably a smart move on their part. Spend your money where the opportunity for a return is best. Interestingly, the embedded market can make money (at least a little higher-up) - that's pretty much what's kept PowerPC cranking along all these years. It's popular in cars, printers, and networking equipment, to a much greater degree than Apple buys them. I think Intel still makes i960s, too - for that purpose.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I'm sure there are lots of 486's floating around out there in various storage facilities and warehouses that weren't disposed of after retirement. I know we have such a place where I work. I guess this doesn't help the embedded market much (I'm guessing they don't use ZIF sockets :) But if anyone wants a 486 cluster it shouldn't be a problem for a while yet.
Is Intel still making their low-power x86 chips? There are some good alternatives if you don't care about binary compatibility (mips, strong arm) or cost (transmeta). Start hoarding those K6's!
What makes me wonder is why are 486's still in production? Granted they're fast enough for embedded applications and DOS, I'm guessing, but how much do they go for? $3US?
There are enough of those model chips out there, that if anyone wanted one they could get it from an online auction or a computer swap shop dirt cheap. Some of us even work for large corporations that are giving away their old computer with 486 and 586 processors in them. Progress, out with the old in with the new. I guess this gives them a good chance to really get into the higher end market with more time and money to put toward producing faster chips.
Rock on!
~LoudMusic
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
My company makes our own board to use in our hardware. We use the AMD SC320. It's an embedded 80386 compatible processor. AMD still makes it. We are finishing up the design on our new board, which uses the AMD SC520, an embedded '586' class x86 processor. AMD released the SC520 in 1999. Go to www.amd.com and click on "Embedded Processors." So AMD isn't making the 486, K5, and K6 chips anymore. Any design expecting longevity should have moved to the real "embedded" line long ago. For that m
I knew these things were still being sold for embedded and similar use, but can consumers still pick them up (and related components - motherboards and cards and stuff) in signle quantities? I could always use an extra machine built on the cheep.
I hate when I forget to preview :/
I have dealt with boards using this chip from a company called Inprimis, they have several designs available with that chip.
HTH.
I recall the Zilog Z80 and Motorola 68000 had long lives after being licensed over to Hitachi.
Maybe Hitachi could start making K6s.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
What, me worry?
NOW how will I realize my dream of constructing a Beowulf cluster out of 486 SX/25s? If I get a few hundred more it'll be JUST AS FAST as my Athlon 500!
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I know that there are those tiny little matchbox sized servers, but it just didn't sink in untill this post. It looks like I will have to do some scrounging and make up that matchbox sized linux gateway for DSL that i have wanted to do for soo long.
/me would love to see some kind of MP application of the K6-IIIE (if only) to be used in something like the Sun PCi cards.
It is also good to see AMD having the decentcy to notify their customers early, and that they will continue to develop chips for the embedded market.
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
This does not seem quite possible. We are still using their Am186CH processors and plan to do so for the next few years.
As I see it there is, and will be, big demand for embedded 486's. Or perhaps they are going to make these K6's cheaper than, say, R3000. Or 186's faster than 486's (they are already very fast - running at 50MHz).
We had some electrical wiring problems with the outlets going into this one office with 10 K6 workstations just yesterday, and all boxen in that office took a dirtnap (i.e. the motherboard fried on all of them, and the CPU fried on 2).
I called up our local PC vendor who had sold us the PCs just 7 months ago. The vendor said that AMD stopped making the CPUs and to get (original make) replacement boards and CPUs will take at least 4-6 weeks!
That meant I had to buy either
some more expensive motherboards, or
the only motherboards the vendor had
(Is he bluffing? Vendor poker, anyone?)
Makes me wonder if motherboard manufacturers have followed suit in this one.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Although many people might treat older CPUs (or machines) with contempt, there are lots of uses for them.
For example, I've got an old Linux 486 under my desk which does firewalling/NAT. Before that, each time I'd rebooted my PC I had to redial. Now I've got it to manage the modem. Hopefully when broadband arrives, it will become my gateway.
For newer computers, one can still run Linux (or Windows 95) on them. I believe that the neither the full bloat of GNOME, KDE, nor of Windows XP is required to do most of the work.
Always keep in mind that Unix was written for a PDP-11, a computer that had a fraction of the processing power of an XT.
OK, so answer me this: could intel get their hands on the specs for the chips AMD is halting and make their own versions which might not be exactly the same, but provide the same minimal amount of operations with the same interface? They could probably pick up some cash that way...
~ now you know
Along with original pentiums. I spent all last week making PCX graphics for an NCR ATM with a 586 60 that ran OS2 Warp.
These guys aren't used to do floating point math, just to display low-res graphics on ATM screens and operate the ATM's internal mechanism.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I believe that's " My momma didn't raise no dummy..."
Don't worry AMD will stock upn on a couple of years worth of 486s, 586s, K5s & K6s (at current demand), before closing the line.
One reason why old processors are used is because of reliablity. Now sure, CPUs tend to have very few bugs in them relative to software, but for low-end 32bit mission-critical stuff, nothing beats a tried and proven Intel 80386SX. Many space-craft run on 386s simply because they're so old & therefore have all the bugs ironed out of them.
While that's a positive boon (i.e. being able to use an Athlon in many of the contexts that you'd be able to use a K6-II/III processor)- it's still a heat monster and I doubt they've made it hostile environment yet (Embedded K6's could handle operation from -40 to +80 degrees Centigrade...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Someone please list to me the number of embedded products that use AMD processors.
...because after all, they still use very old processors on STS. Oh well, guess they'll buy from Intel [probably always have]...
-- Geof F. Morris
After all this no-one will use AMD chips in embedded designs again as their embedded roadmap promises are worthless.
I still see Z80 and Z80A CPU's in embedded circuits .. and people are carping on about how magnificent it is that the PC turned only 20...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
They spend a billion dollars per fab. How do you think they allocate the resources of that fab? They look at their sales figures and they see what their actual customers are actually buying. If the customers are buying 486's, they'll keep running 486 wafers. But that's not the case.
Because not everything that uses a CPU is a PC... that's why people need them.
A short list:
phones (cell and desk)
dvd players
cable boxes
dsl/cable modems
heat seeking missile sensors
hand held radios
EKG monitors
automobile fuel injection control systems
home security alarm systems
I am sure you can think of many more such devices.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
the K7 will be as much of a relic as the K6 et al.
Not the Mini. Production of thatfine vehicle only stopped a few months ago in the UK and will not carry on anywhere else.
Other old UK cars were reproduced, though - notably the Hindustan Ambassador in India, which is a Morris Oxford. The Mk2 Vauxhall Astra became the Daewoo Nexia, too...
ac.uk
Do you seriously think a company would can it's line of processors if it was actually selling good? You never say no to money. If it would have been profitable, it would have stayed that way. Besides, some people will stock a lot of it with such an announcement (so that will push the fab to maximum till it shuts down the production, good thing for them) and after that there will still be plenty available on the market for a while.
It could also be a ploy to check consumer's reaction and see if it's profitable in the mid term to keep that fab with these productions or not. Anyhow I wouldn't be too worried about the X86, Maybe a bit more for the new K6 line with low power, since there's not a load of them on the market... then again people might stock them in huge quantities.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I think people here who are saying "Big deal, it's how the industry works.. Old CPU's stop getting made" are missing the point.
The "embedded" world is a bunch of companies producing devices that are usually small, lower powered, small production runs, and generally get made for alot longer than most electronics you're used to.
The last company I worked for (Midway Games) made arcade(coin-operated) video games. For a brief time, I worked with the group called "Wavenet". Wavenet was an idea to link arcade games up in arcades all through the world, to allow real-time tournaments. The first game that was tried was Mortal Kombat 3. MK3 used a really weird processor called a 34010 from Texas Instruments. (Weird in that it had *BIT* addressable memory, funky graphics opcodes built in that we never used, etc) However, the game designers pretty much pushed the CPU to its max before we had a chance to make it a networked game. There wasn't enough RAM, CPU, or ROM (for networking code) left to do it, as well as this board didn't have an ethernet output on it to connect it up to the router.
Midway ended up designing a tiiiiny little board (running a small embedded OS that just translated game commands into TCP/IP and vice versa) that plugged into an expansion connector on the MK3 board. It had an Ethernet controller, some ram, more ROMs for the networking code and a 386SX CPU made by AMD on it. Why not use a Pentium, or Pentium Pro? (which was the newest CPU out at the time)
Cost. Right now, you can get 386SX CPU's for a couple of dollars.
Power. Compare the latest generation of 386 CPUs to even a slow PII. HUUUGE difference here.
Board space. The embedded 386's are a little bigger than an american nickle. Pentium class CPU's... well... are big.
Longevity. When we bought these, we got committments from our suppliers that the CPU would be around for at least X months/years. This is REALLLLY important to us. If we're going to spend a ton of cash designing a board based around a CPU, we don't want it to disappear next month when something better comes along.
Had the embedded world not existed, and we had to use a faster/newer CPU, the board cost would have doubled, it would have been a bigger board(again more $$), We likely would have needed to put a bigger power supply(or played tricks with regulators), and then had to redsign the board every time the trendy chip got unpopular. All for horsepower we didn't even need!
Take a look here. Intel is still supporting and selling 80186 CPU's, for embedded controller uses.
Many many companies depend on slower CPU's for things. I don't know if it's still true, but at one point nearly every computer-controlled traffic light system sold used an 80186 CPU. Intel(?) came up with a "hardened" version of it that tolerated extreme cold and extreme heat. Companies that produce products like that are even happy paying double price for an old CPU that can do that, than installing air conditioners and heaters in every traffic light box.
The embedded CPU industry is a place where normal PC economics do not apply. It's not unheard of to pay extra for a part just because you know it'll be around for 10 years, instead of a cheaper(sometimes better) part that will go away as soon as it's not trendy.
While I don't know the specifics of this deal, it sounds like AMD is breaking their previously announced EOL(End Of Life) dates. This is quite likely going to piss a lot of people off who built their product around one of these CPUs.
I think AMD atholons are great chips. why do you need some slow chips like 586s,486s and K6s
flamedaemon666
... it is loosing it's support for not-mainstream but important, little things.
I was suprised to see 486 chips on 3com Hiper Arch controllers and router cards and in netscout ethernet probes (586 chips). To AMD's credit it must be hard to compete with the ebay $5 for a bagful of working? chips. So it's probably more profitable to focus on faster procs. Maybe Ti, winchip, or cyrix will pick up the slack. Or this could open a niche for refurbished chips.
Although, I would say around 80-90% of my VxWorks work is either PowerPC (PowerQUICC for data comm. applications) or StrongARM (everything else). MIPS is also pretty common these days.
But then again, VxWorks is pretty portable (not that I like it or WRS or anything.
Embedded systems are nothing like PC's. And it isn't a simple matter of "progressing" an embedded system towards newer technology. It simply isn't always doable.
There are electrical issues like power consumption and heat that apply. Not to mention that changing processors on an embedded system can require many software changes. Especially if the CPU talks to cutom ASIC's and uses calibrated timing loops to drive the chip.
Not to mention most embedded systems simply do not need that kind of CPU horsepower.
Yes but even the venerable PDP11 eventually went out of production.
Speaking of which, does anyone know of any still-in-use PDP's ? A few of years ago someone mentioned seeing one in a factory or some other industrial setting, I wonder if it is still going.