Re: 8 bit microcontroller market

Chris Hills wrote:

I would say that the market will split into 8 bit and 32 bit. Apart from a few specialised parts like the MSP430 the 16 bit market will die out.

Book mark this post and get me to eat my hat in about 5 years time :-)

Do we have to wait ~5 years ?

Spin and marketing will conspire against such predictions.

A good, very current example, is the ZNEO from Zilog.

Zilog pitch this as a 16 bit uC, as the base opcode is 16 bits, with some larger opcodes. But it has 16 x 32 bit registers, and can do 64 bit operand maths. Compare that with the CortexM3 (another new core), it has 16 x 32 bit registers, and the base opcode is 16 bits, with some 32 bit ones.
It can multiply to 64 bit result, but seems to lack a 64/32:32
- this is pitched as 32 bit controller.

Who is 'right' ?

This shows the flaw in trying to firstly pigenhole uC into boxes, and then moving pick winner(s) and looser(s).

Freescale look set to somewhat abandon these 8/16/32 bit pigenholes,
so maybe in 5 years time, we'll look back on attempts to quantify complex devices with a single number, as quaint ? :)

-jg


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: 8 bit microcontroller market
    ... Jim Granville wrote: ... from a few specialised parts like the MSP430 the 16 bit market will die ... The key point is, it is futile to pigenhole these things to any degree of precision, because everyone uses different yardsticks. ... There are plenty of fast 8-bit devices that are faster than slower 16-bit or 32-bit devices, and an embedded developer is interested in many more things than some raw speed measurement. ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Re: 8 bit microcontroller market
    ... from a few specialised parts like the MSP430 the 16 bit market will die ... the size of the internal register datapath. ... you now have a different yardstick to everyone else:) ... The key point is, it is futile to pigenhole these things to any degree of precision, because everyone uses different yardsticks. ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Re: 8 bit microcontroller market
    ... "Jim Granville" wrote... ... I would say that the market will split into 8 bit and 32 bit. ... This shows the flaw in trying to firstly pigenhole uC into boxes, ... But if 16-bit moves take twice as long as 8-bit and 16-bit arithmetic takes about twice ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)