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The 8bit micros are becoming smaller and cheaper though, they're still very useful in certain applications that require very little power (both electrical and p
by jimktrains2 9y ago
The 8bit micros are becoming smaller and cheaper though, they're still very useful in certain applications that require very little power (both electrical and processing).
- ChuckMcM 9y agoYou are correct that there are places for them, But generally not places that need a high level language. Which is the interesting thing for me. At the current processing nodes (22nm and even 45nm) the cost of the packaging and bin testing dominates. It costs, too a fairly close approximation, exactly the same to put a chip in that is 8 bits as it does to put one in that is 32 bits. I had a great discussion with a product manager from ST Micro about this at their recent Developers Conference in the Bay Area. They had some collateral on the STM8 series and I asked about it and he shared the above but said that it was either legacy designs, essentially CPLD type designs, or HW engineers without a software person to support them that seemed to still use 8 bit machines. From ST's perspective the cost to produce was the same. At Digikey the lowest cost 32 bit processor is 58 cents[1], and the lowest cost 8 bit processor is 40 cents[2]. [1] https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/STM32F030F4P6TR/497-17333-2-ND/4755941 https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics... [2] https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/STM8S003F3U6TR/STM8S003F3U6TR-ND/3087895 https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics...
- Bromskloss 9y ago> But generally not places that need a high level language. Are you referring to Rust here?
- jimmyswimmy 9y agoSometimes even C. Those little chips don't have enough RAM or flash to handle the overhead. Often the only choice is assembly.