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Ten Lies About Microprocessors

Posted by timothy on from the lies-they-tell-you-lies dept.

cloudkj writes "Processor selection too often turns into a religious war. Debunking the dominant myths is the first step towards making a rational choice. Embedded.com has an article highlighting the 10 most common lies and misconceptions about microprocessors."

2 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Missed the biggest one of all... by smoondog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    #3: Instruction sets don't matter

    I would say:

    #3. The clock speed is a good estimate for processor performance

    They implied it here, but even in this world today, there are competent people that think clock speed actually matters when comparing one processor over another. I had an IT person who controls a pretty big budget actually compare a processor in a 8way Sun server to a 21264 alpha chip using only the magnitude of the clock speed as the only performance benchmark. As most (should) know, clock speed works for ranking processors within a family, but mean very, very little in the real world. It's obvious, but as long as purchasers think this is true bad decisions are being made...

    -Sean

  2. Not all Micrprocessor are reliable as each other by plusser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Take a 486 processor and the latest pentium 4 and then run them for 4 or 5 years. Due to the way that modern processors are manufactured as the die features are much smaller, then there is a high probability that the Pentium 4 has now stopped working:- The 486 is still likely to be going strong.

    The problem is this, it is fine having the latest technology fitted in the a piece of equipment. However, if you expect that piece of equipment to be operational for an extended number of years, don't select the most powerful processor avialable. Fit one that is reliable and is likely to still be in production for the foreseable future.

    Ahh, some of you would say, surely you can emulate an old microprocessor in the future if you need to. Good premise, but if you are building for an application that is incorporated into a safety device on an aircraft or even a car, you will spend an absolute fortune re-qualifing the replacement software. An if you are only building a a few units for spares, it is one easy way of going bunkrupt.

    and this is before I start talking about whether the microprocessor will operate in the temperature, vibration environment and the effects of atmospheric radiation at altitude.

    Working outside the PC industry, there is a lot more to consider than you would think....

    Plusser