| ??? 06/17/10 22:35 Read: times |
#176736 - So What Is An 8051/2 Good For? |
Rather than hijack another thread, I'll start a new one.
The Background: Andrew Ayre said:
As a consultant I've seen a marked decrease in clients working with 8051s over the last five years. The vast majority of projects we work with now use 32-bit microcontrollers, such as ARM7, ARM Cortex, etc.
http://www.8052.com/forumchat/read/176702 Justin Fontes said:
Thanks to products that are graphically oriented such as the new cell phones and portable media. The real race is between ARM and x86 cores. I for one still enjoy the 8051, but I also believe that there is a heavy market in FPGA design, as not a whole lot of people know the complexities of the device. Intel also introduced the ATOM processor which is in a way a direct competition with the ARM and x86 cores directly aimed at the netbook market.
http://www.8052.com/forumchat/read/176703 I said:
But none of them would ever be appropriate for an 8051/2! Justin Fontes said:
What markets are appropriate for the 8051/2? As I have been reading, in particular this article:
http://www.eetimes.com/showArtic...=212101492 NXP is saying that the 8-bit industry is dead, while ST is claiming it is alive and kicking. There are no specific high dollar margins for an 8-bit mcu anymore unless the application is extremely rare. Of course, everyone is in agreement that the 8-bit market is dominated by the 8051/2. Other people have made the point that an employer can easily hire someone to program for an 8-bit mcu while 16/32 bit mcu require someone to "fly" in for the job. What I mainly see the 8051/2 doing in applications is giving peripherals to the 16/32 bit devices. You'll notice a mouse or a keyboard will still contain an 8-bit mcu (at least I hope), as an example. So, what would be appropriate? http://www.8052.com/forumchat/read/176733 Well, I see the 8051/2 as a simple controller - so it's appropriate to simple control applications. I think your examples of the mouse and providing peripherals to bigger processors are spot-on! See: http://www.8052.com/forumchat/read/164115 And simple applications like this: http://www.8052.com/forumchat/read/176682 When the application is really simple, it'll probably always be cheaper to do it with an 8-bitter than anything bigger. Thus I really don't see that there's much future for "high-end" 8051's (except, maybe, a few niches - I think Richard Erlacher has a couple of exzmples) What really makes no sense at all these days is trying to fight the limitations of an 8051 when, say, a Cortex-M3 simply doesn't have those limitations in the first place! See: http://www.8052.com/forumchat/read/156744 (and many more). |
