Slashdot Mirror
From Silicon To Microprocessors
prostoalex writes "Jim Turley from Embedded Systems Programming magazine answers the question of where microprocessors come from. While the public generally knows about the silicon and microprocessor vendors, few can describe the process of turning the beach sand into the latest and greatest several-hundred-dollars-worth CPU."
A knowledge of history is almost always a Good Thing. I wonder how many programmers have never heard of Charles Babbage? ("Analytical Engine? What?") You should at least have a decent knowledge of the history of your craft. Call me old-fashioned, but my love of computer science isn't limited by EnterpriseJavaBeans and BiCapitalizedMumboJumbo and whatever buzzword happens to be out today. There's more to it than that.
I have discovered a truly marvelous
A huge amount. Many embedded systems have real-time requirements, tight memory-space limitations, and a much lower tolerance for failure than desktop systems. If you're talking about a comsumer embedded device (e.g. a cellphone), you have to deal with power management as well. There are multiple operating systems to choose from, several types of processor architectures (including the Harvard Archirtecture typified by Intel's old 8051 family that has entirely separate memory spaces for instructions and data), and several buses specific to embedded systems work.
Why should this matter? There are several embedded systems in your car, and I'm sure you'd be mightily ticked if your car just stopped working randomly. On a more mundane level, what about programmable thermostats or the security card readers where you go to work? That's not to mention the mission-critical embedded systems in aircraft and medical devices.
More to the point, why are humans required at all in the manufacturing process. I would expect the entire manufacturing and testing process, from sand to plastic-encased chip, to be automated enough that people in bunny suits should not be needed. Maybe they are needed to replace the robots and fill up the supplies, but other than that, what do they do?