At 10:19 AM 5/19/2006 -0700, you wrote:

>On May 19, 2006, at 8:47 AM, Bob Axtell wrote:
>
> >>> If I read my tealeaves right the 16-bit market will be
> >>> small because the >8 bit market will be dominated by 32 bit
> >>> architectures (ARM, probably others too).
>
>I'm inclined to agree here.  I think the 8bit cores have gotten
>faster and the 32bit cores have gotten cheaper, to the point
>where 16bit cores are being squeezed out of existence (if there
>ever were any true 16 bit cores. x86?  PDP11?)

The ARM7 is a 16 bit core in Thumb mode. The MSP430 is called 16-bit, and
it's quite attractive in so

One point I didn't see touched upon is that of code density. The
cost of a 32-bit core and an 8-bit may be essentially equal with,
say, 0.18u technology (since it's such a tiny percentage of the total
die real estate), but if the required flash for a given application is
50% more then the chip will be noticeably more expensive to make.

>Putting more into the very small chips would indeed be an
>interesting strategy;  Large numbers of PWMs in a small package
>is something that has come up several times, and has applications
>in motor driving and etc...
>
>
> >> If Microchip would license the ARM core...
>
>Now THAT would be interesting...

They would certainly get a lot of sales. Especially with the right
peripherals on-chip. But Sandhi specifically wants to increase *margins*,
and that's maybe not the best way to do that. With a proprietary chip, the
customer is locked in, and competition is kept out to a greater extent.

>Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
->>Test equipment, parts OLED displys http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZspeff


-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist