A .Net CPU

An anonymous reader writes "Windows for devices has an article about the .Net CPU. The chip is programmed with a subset of the CLR and runs the same software as the SPOT smart watches. Among other things, "[t]he computer module is implemented in the format of a 32-pin "DIP" (dual inline package) chip, allowing the module to conveniently plug into a standard 32-pin DIP socket. In addition, the ".netcpu CPU Module" integrates 4MB of nonvolatile Flash memory (interfaced via an SPI interface on the SoC). It also provides 24 general purpose digital I/O lines, which are multiplexed with other functions including 8 VTU ports, a USB port, two serial ports, and SPI and I2C interfaces." More information about the product can be found at the .netcpu company website."

Comments

.Not a .NET CPU

[Gopal.V]

It is really just a CPU on which CLR runs , not a real .NET CPU in hardware. (or so the TFA seems to indicate from the diagram). Also of the more convenient peices of the ECMA 335 spec.

It's an embedded chip which has a CLR on top of it. Nice idea, sorry that Sun thought of it earlier ( The Green Project) - Sun seems to be consistently missing the BUS here. They came up with "Network is the computer" and now MS is selling ".NET " :)

I've seen a couple of stack based engines but by its polymorphic nature .NET bytecode is not suitable for a direct CPU (you could do something like dynamic translation like the Crusoe chip had). But then it's still a JIT , right ? :)

ctrl-alt-del keys?

[rleyton]

They must be very small, but I think I can see them if I look really closely and squint a bit.

Never will be a direct chip for Parrot

[Gopal.V]

Parrot is not a very good design to put on a chip, for one single reason.

Too Many opcodes (1500 at my current count and growing).

Morover parrot has opcodes which do very complicated things like "print_nc" which prints a FLOATVAL constant. Compared to that IL opcodes are simpler and JVM is still more simpler (CVM is even simpler - which is what I'm working on now).

Parrot is too complex, period.

Re:Scary (saracasm)

[kahei]

I'd say that I see more .NET projects starting than any other single platform in my industry, although the lead over Java is slim and obviously there is far more Java already running. I wouldn't say that .NET has reached the 'will be with us forever' point that Java and C have, but it's certainly been very popular with devs and had a number of successful early projects. In the end it will probably stand or fall on the success of Longhorn (which everyone is quite skeptical about). But buy-in has been good.

Maybe its just me but....

[ezelkow1]

this thing seems like an overpriced piece of junk just trying to hawk its .NET and VS support. Most of the microcontrollers out there i have seen can in some way or another be programmed in C and its various forms. 200 dollars just for the cpu seems to be asking a lot when the only advantage i see is that is 4mb of flash, and other MC's can always be expanded to that anyway. Besides the fact that other MC's out there that are cheaper also contain a whole lot more peripherals and features than this one. But maybe thats just me

Re:Scary (saracasm)

[the angry liberal]

Sorry, Microsoft-- just because you want something to be true doesn't mean that it is.

Perhaps if you put your troll's club down long enough to take a look at sourceforge, you would notice most of the newer open source applications for Windows are being developed in .NET.

It won't take over the Internet, but it has been well accepted and is easy to use.

I wonder though, with all this FUD, if anyone can produce real numbers showing which is in more demand in the workplace: Linux developers vs .NET developers. I'm not talking about which is more 31337, I am talking about which one will find more steady income and have less trouble when they need to change jobs.

Actually, it's an ARM7

[david.given]

According to the products page on their website:

• 384K of SRAM, single cycle access
• 27 MHz ARM7TDMI
• FBGA chip form
• ~450,000 instructions per second
• 4MB non volatile flash
• 1.8-volt core, 3.3-volt I/O
• 32768 Hz real-time clock
• 32-pin pinout, including 24 GPIO ports multiplexed with other functions (8 VTU ports, dual serial ports, SPI, and USB port)
• SPI and I2C interfaces

I assume FBGA is a typo for FPGA. This thing sounds suspiciously similar to one of those standard FPGAs with a built-in ARM7 core.

It actually sounds like quite a nice little embedded system, a kind of grown-up Basic STAMP. I expect that the .net VM is in ROM; on start-up the FPGA is probably bootstrapped from it. I wonder if it would be possible to replace it with a real operating system?

Re:Actually, it's an ARM7

[Pemdas]

I assume FBGA is a typo for FPGA.

When referring to packaging, FBGA is usually Fine Ball Grid Array. I really doubt it's a typo. From the programmers point of view, the package virtually never significant.

Overall, this sounds remarkably similar to picoJava, which, last I checked, was going nowhere, and for good reason.

Designing bytecode formats for VMs is not really the same as designing opcodes for microprocessors -- shoehorning hardware that way is painful and generally results in less elegant, more expensive designs.

OTOH, the bytecodes in question aren't really significantly worse than, say, x86, and look where that is today...

Boring compared to... the Brainf*ck CPU!

[quigonn]

http://www.clifford.at/bfcpu/bfcpu.html This piece of hardware is tres cool, as it implements the _complete_ set of Brainf*ck instructions as native instruction set.

Re:Scary (saracasm)

[benjymous]

Personally as someone who's long developed Windows Win32/MFC code (in C++) and is now moving to C# .NET stuff, I'm finding .NET an absolute doddle.

let's face it - MFC and Win32 are old and have been cobbled together, seemingly at random over the lifespan of the whole Windows family, meaning nothing feels like it's ever really been designed

One function returns a colour, another function needs a colour. Oh dear, one uses some kind of int, the other a struct (oh and another some kind of class) - lets bog down our code with lots of conversion functions - Most of the time the sensible obvious approach to a task is the wrong one.

So far in .NET, whenever I've wanted to do something, I've looked at the classes, thought "How would it be sensible to do this", and 9 times out of 10 it works perfectly

Re:Virtual Java Virtual Machine

[mukund]

This has been available for a long time with open access to the design from Sun as the picoJava CPU core. It was not an economically viable CPU and I think this's one of the reasons why Sun released it.

Re:So

[Taladar]

It is an entirely different situation.

They can't just kill backwards compatibility now since it is the one big reason to stay with Windows. Most businesses are evaluating other OS now and if the change to a new Windows version requires rewriting all your programs (I know they will probably implement a compatibility layer but we know how well that worked in the past) then they might just as well rewrite them on Linux (or some other OS that 'lacks' MS Security Features (TM) ).

Re:Scary (saracasm)

[Mant]

I can't imagine .NET is going to take over the Internet, but ASP.NET is a very nice platform for writing web apps. OK they will probably run on IIS, unless you use Mono, but it is a big step up from the scripting languages approach of basically just printing out the web page.

It gives some nice abstraction to writing web pages, you don't have to worry about hand crafting every bit of HTML that is going out to the browser (although you can if you want or need to), and can deal with the concepts, objects and events.

.NET does little that is new, Java was doing much of it first, but for writing web apps it is pretty simple and powerful and has good development software. We are moving to it at work because it makes us more productive.

That's funny

[le_defaut_tragique]

Check out the company website, and Google them. I just did and it turns up that this company was founded on Oct10.2k4ce by Mark Phillips. A Google turned up... the company website, the original submission, and a couple other press releases. this is their only product, and they made it in two months.

Microsoft's only connection with them is that Mark Phillips guy, who, when googled investigatively, appears to have founded A Dot Corporation in Apr.2k3ce and they were involved in... SPOT Watch technology and claim microsoft to be a business partner (spotcorporation.com).

So is Mark Phillips using his work with microsoft's SPOT developer team to create something to market under a different name? Both companies list only Mark Phillips as founder and, in fact, confirmed employee, although one site listed A Dot as having 24 employees.

Yeah, so that's funny...

Re:Scary (saracasm)

[tarunthegreat2]

Say what you want about .NET (I disagree with u completely BTW), but the IDE KICKS Hardcore BUTT! I have yet to see something better the VS .NET 2003 for development. Quite a few people have bought into .NET and if I have a choice between C++ and C#, I pick C# thanks....but then I was born and raised on C and Java anyway....

Re:Hmm, sounds familiar

[sosume]

Yeah riiiiight have you ever seriously looked at the spec of these 'java chips'? They are not as advanced as Sun may have you believe..

* No floating point 16-bit int instead of 32 bits.
* All types (byte, short, char, int and boolean) use 2 bytes,
though byte and short arrays use 1 byte per element.
* Only one-dimensional arrays (can use the index to simulate a 2-D array.)
* Single byte ASCII strings instead of two byte Unicode
* Only a single thread available, though a timer allows for
scheduling of multiple tasks. (Plus the VP objects run independently)
* No interfaces, though sub-classing of an abstract base class is allowed.
* A subset of the core libraries is available. (Remember also that
all linked classes must be downloaded with the program and fit into
the 32kb of memory.)
* No garbage collection. All objects created will last for the
duration of the program.

Compare that to this .NET chip....
* 384K of SRAM, single cycle access
* 27 MHz ARM7TDMI
* FBGA chip form
* ~450,000 instructions per second
* 4MB non volatile flash
* 1.8-volt core, 3.3-volt I/O
* 32768 Hz real-time clock
* 32-pin pinout, including 24 GPIO ports multiplexed with other functions (8 VTU ports, dual serial ports, SPI, and USB port)
* SPI and I2C interfaces

and its multithreaded, too