Re: ARM9 Choice
- From: Tim Wescott <tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:32:35 -0600
On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:54:35 -0600, Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:
icegray wrote:
Hi,
I am looking for cpu for a automotive infotainment project. Project
details are 800x600 lcd, graphical charts, graphical user interfaces,
audio (MP3 and Radio), CAN Bus communication, probably embedded linux,
maybe rear camera and gps, etc.
You need a Pentium class industrial PC with WinCE or Embedded XP.
Unless, of course, you want your device to have a low enough COGS to both
sell and make money for your company.
The above mentioned combination may be the best to _prototype_ the
product, but I wouldn't rule it in for the real product, particularly if
you're going to be shipping in high enough volumes to justify some
serious engineering.
I doubt that you'll find one processor that does all that you want all by
itself. The biggest driver to processing power that I can see is video,
and even that is highly variable depending on what you want to do:
* Are you going to stream video at all? If everything else can go at
"GUI" speeds your processor can be modest. This means that having that
rear-view camera is going to make an expensive step in your COGS.
* Are you going to stream video through the processor? I.e., can you get
by with a chipset that hijacks part of the screen for video without
running the data through the processor, or are you going to do something
like use a USB or Firewire camera and have the processor fondle every
byte that goes through?
* Are you going to decompress video in the processor? Are you going to
be playing MPEG files and DVDs? If _that's_ the case then maybe
Vladimir's Pentium is a candidate, although for a large production run
you could probably do better with a more modest 'main' processor that's
getting serious help from a DSP chip, an FPGA, an ASIC, or a dedicated
video decompresser (if such things exist these days).
I don't see anything in principal wrong with Linux -- I'm typing this
from a linux box that does just fine with video (in fact, I got it to
force me to learn linux for the day when I'd be writing for embedded
linux). Then again, I don't see anything wrong with Windows in
principal, either. I lean toward Linux for entirely emotional reasons:
it always pisses me off to have an OS salesman tell me (and my customer)
how easy it'll be to use, because I know that when I get down to brass
tacks I'll be seeing more of my customers money go down the drain,
through my time or one of their engineers', on OS deficits than was spent
on the OS in the first place. So choosing Linux, VxWorks, Windows
Embedded, or any other OS should be based on your best guess of the
benefits of the OS for your application, taking all things into
consideration.
--
Tim Wescott
Control systems and communications consulting
http://www.wescottdesign.com
Need to learn how to apply control theory in your embedded system?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" by Tim Wescott
Elsevier/Newnes, http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
.
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