> On 6/10/2013 6:18 PM, Manu Abraham wrote:
>> But according to your philosophy you keep adding in chips for each=20
>> functionality, while the same could be handled within software itself=20
>> within the microcontroller.=20
Not what I said at all. I was talking about alternatives when you don't=20
have the resources in your current chip. If you have the resources do it=20
in software, but often you don't have the resources and you cannot just=20
choose a new chip to support the one function you have to implement. The=20
rest of the design team will not be happy with you.

>> For these reasons, the industry moved much ahead to SoC's, ASIC/FPGA
You are putting pic type projects in with projects that use much more=20
powerful chips. You wouldn't even need the pic if you had custom ASIC. =20
Pic isn't for that market and probably never will be. Don't confuse=20
microcontroller with microprocessor.  They are two very different markets.

>> In my case: I have a microcontroller that has some free resources=20
>> that can handle about 2 encoders in software. It wouldn't really make=20
>> sense at my side to drop that idea; to implement a communications=20
>> interface on it, then use another microcontroller which is going to=20
>> do similar techniques to handle the same things eventually. The=20
>> overhead what I can clearly see is one more additional=20
>> microcontroller and an additional communication interface (whatever=20
>> interface it is). So, I have no more hardware components to play=20
>> with, and more software to debug.. That's really an unwanted=20
>> overhead, isn't it ? Regards, Manu=20

I think you misunderstood. I was not talking about your specific=20
situation but rotary encoders in general. What would you have done if=20
you had to implement 6 different encoders(xyz in two planes  on a=20
plotter for instance ) but couldn't change the current chip you are=20
using ? That is the situation I was referring to , when you don't have=20
the resources and can't afford to handle the inputs.

Mark



--=20
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