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32-bit Processors, Cheap
An anonymous reader writes "Atmel is sampling the first in a new line of 32-bit system-on-chip processors that could spell the death of the venerable 8-bit microcontroller market by offering 32-bit performance at 8-bit pricing. Priced as low as $3 each, the AT91SAM7 chips with ARM7TDMI RISC CPU cores and built-in RAM/flash memory may even be able to run a form of Linux called uClinux. The death of the 8-bit uC market has long been predicted -- sounds like the end is nigh!"
The death of the 8-bit uC market has long been predicted
Has Netcraft confirmed it?
There are so many embedded applications that do just fine with 8-bit controllers that there is no reason they should dissapear just because something more powerful comes along.
Anyone who has done this design knows that there is more cost in what happens on the whiteboard than something like this at the component level.
Not everything in the world has the "upgrade or else" fear that surrounds the personal computer industry.
second society
The 8-bit MCU market has been shrinking for over a decade. It's no secret. Of course there will always be a market for small-time CPUs; certainly hobbyists will want them. But traditional places like your car computers need more real-time DSP computation and the like, and require the MCU to grow with them.
Who wants to be able to program their TV to record TV from work? Who wants to program their lights to come on from work? Who wants to program their heat/AC to turn on/off from work? Who wants their oven to preheat from work?
I know I do.
While I love to hear news of the latest whizbang doohicky, I cannot stand when people have to add "This is surely going to end anyone on the planet ever using last years widget..." As geeks we should be aware and PROUD of old technology. Serial ports? I use them every day at work. 8 bit microcontrollers. I love them to death. They work nice, are cheap enough, and are very easy to design for and around. So yes, many places where someone might have used X in the past will now be replaced with Y, but so freakin what? But part of the joy of hacking is taking what someone else thought was worthless and using it anyway. Hence the stories of people salvaging old laptops or modding their Amigas to be a multimedia console, etc. Yes, the newest latest greatest toys are spiffy and should be discussed, but how about we all just settle down and stop dumping on anything not cutting edge?
What about the heat dissipation and power usage? Sometimes that's a lot more important than the price. If it's just as cheap but uses more power, you might need a bigger power supply, more batteries, better heat dissipation, possibly a fan, etc., it doesn't help.
I'm pretty sure standard 8-bit uCs are overkill for most applications -- what would 32-bits buy you?
OK, you *can* put a web browser in your gas pump, but should you? Having seen BP's implementation, I would say not.
aQazaQa
I use Microchip processors extensively for work, and there's a heck of a lot that I can accomplish with their limited architecture -- my most recent design required less than 8K of flash memory and was mostly written in assembler. For low-end applications, 32-bit doesn't make sense, especially if its going to add $1 to the cost of manufacture. Given that small 8-bit MCUs can be purchased for well under $1 in large volume, I think there's a market for them.
8 bits is all the majority of embedded applications need. Its lower power, and cheaper.
8 bits rules the world and will continue to do so for a long time.
If your application needs the extra capabilities that a 32 bit chip offers, this is a big deal, but if the old 8bit standby does the job an draws a few milliwatts less, you're better off sticking with the old fashioned, 8bit chip.
I think it's a little too early to say goodbye to 8bit microcontrollers.
See what I've been reading.
Who wants to worry about someone hacking their TV and deleting all their recordings? Who wants to worry about whether or not you're lights will stay on/off because some scriptkiddie wrote a BlinkenLitez for your neighborhood? Who wants to come home to find out their house is heated to a balmy 97 degrees because someone hacked their thermostat? Who wants to come home to find their oven has been running all day on Broil?
I know I don't.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Who wants their oven to preheat from work?
As a father of six, I know I would never preheat the oven without first looking inside. It would be unfortunate if an action figure, or worse the cat, were to meet an early demise.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
As an embedded systems consumer product design engineer by trade, I can state with great confidence that $3 is NOT cheap.
In fact, for everyone who's pointed out that PIC's cost well under a dollar:
That's not cheap either.
4-bit watch micros and the kind of thing that runs your toaster are priced in the 0-25cents range in volume -- that's right, a few *cents*.
To wit: $3 is greater than the complete cost-of-goods for much of the consumer electronics market. A TINY 4-bit chip, engineered with the same modern techniques as a 32-bit one, will be able to conserve even more power. This may not matter if it's a toaster, but if you want something to run off a battery for 10 years, you better start hunting for the smallest, simplest die you can find.
Coding for older platforms is also very easy, very fast, and easy to certify as bug-free. Put that in your kernel forum and smoke it.
Don't get me wrong, a dirt-cheap linux-capable uCs make me as happy as the next dork, but they're for a very different kind of task. Consider the myriad PDAs with flashy graphics/media capabilities already running on ARM processors and similar...
Having an inexpensive 32 bit uC is great. How much are the development kits? 500$?
The basic stamps are great. For an 8-bit 10kHz platform that runs PBASIC.
The SX & PIC chips are great for 8-bit systems that run at a few MHz (sx up to 50 MHz), that are programmed in assembly.
The TI MSP430 is a great 16-bit platform that runs at 8MHz, programmed in C/C++ (in a few weeks they will probably unveil a 25MHz version). They also include lots of things that I don't like to have to add-on myself. (12-bit A/D & D/A, op-amps, HW uarts/I2C, and so on)
There would definitely be a market for these things, but I'd like to see if they can match development costs for small developers. It seems to me that a key is opening development to the masses. That's what impresses me about the few I listed above. Dev kits from TI are 100$, and from Parallax are
I use uC's for embedding scientific devices onto smaller/cheaper/faster chips. That's great. Now for me to be able try it, and learn to use it, I can't go buy an expensive dev kit. Regardless of the end cost of the chip, I prefer to pay 30-50$ for a board with a chip, that I put in a box and use, than a uC with smt leads that I can't get to work in place without a few hundred to thousand dollars of dev costs.
there are a lot of reasons to use 8-bit uCs. price is only one of them, and rarely the most significant factor. often, uC price is the least significant factor.
pin count, component size, power consumption, and overall complexity are the other major factors in embedded designs. all of these factors are higher in 32bit uCs.
8bit designs arent used solely because they're less powerful, but because they are far simpler than the mess of logic required to support 16bit or 32bit uCs.
8bit uCs aren't in any danger of being killed off by this.