Re: Will SoC completely replace generalized microcontrollers?

Telenochek wrote: 
Probably not too far if one of the bigger software vendors thinks
they can sell enough units at about $10,000 each to pay for
a few million dollars in development cost.   I wouldn't hold
my breath waiting for it, though!@   ;-)


When you get that package,  you can then figure out how to pay
the  license fees for the IP  that will be included.  I suspect
that will involve lawyers!   ;-(


Xilinx development tools don't cost that much if you don't buy "the
latest & the greatest".
In fact, the WebPack costs nothing.
And Spartan3 Starter Kit costs only 100$
Just the Spartan3 Starter Kit alone with the WebPack have the
capabilities unthinkable just a decade ago.  200K reprogrammable gates
of completely custom logic?!

IP cores & software are just a piece of plastic, that costs nothing to
produce apart from development costs (which can be a lot, of course).
Provided the software sells enough the price can easily go down.
Of course putting the design in silicon will be expensive...


Typical IP cores for FPGAs for things like CAN controllers, Ethernet, DDR memory interfaces, USB, etc., cost many thousands of dollars, and typically impose restrictions such as the devices they work with, or being locked to a single workstation. When you take into account the cost of the FPGA space to implement them, the additional hardware components (you will always need external driver chips), along with the development costs, including testing and debugging, and you see that the only make sense if you are making very large quantities, or have very specific requirements. There are plenty of situations where FPGAs with such cores are appropriate - especially if you already have the FPGA on board for specialised logic. And there are plenty of things that an FPGA can do better than anything else. But there is no way they are going to replace microcontrollers or other specific hardware devices - there is some overlap, but they are basically complementary technologies.
.

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