Re: Will SoC completely replace generalized microcontrollers?

On 28 Nov 2005 11:39:49 -0800, the renowned "Telenochek"
<interpasha@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> I expect a continuing trend for
>> more and better peripherals to be included on-chip.
>
>So in your opinion instead of having highly customizable chip and
>systems, the trend is to offer a wider variety of chips for developers
>to choose from?

Well, that's a different question.

It can be made highly (?) customizable by simply throwing everything
but the kitchen sink onto the chip (as hard logic) along with some
muxes and allowing the programmer to select what goes to the (limited)
I/O lines. Already you're seeing that happen with many micros
including low-end 10-bit ADCs and such like as standard. As well, the
number of slightly different micros in given families has been
expanding greatly, so I'm not sure any trend one way or the other is
yet evident. I suspect that it's business strategy driven rather than
depending on technology beyond the obvious application of Moore's law.

Many companies also make their own business decision to standardize on
chips that are not the absolute minimum required so that they can
decrease stocking requirements, improve time to market, and get better
quantity discounts.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@xxxxxxxxxxxx Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
.

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