3 ms·
Impossible to answer in general context :) Nowadays anything from 16kB to 2GB of RAM gets called "embedded". Storage is the same but x10. I would be surprise
by shandor 9y ago
Impossible to answer in general context :)
Nowadays anything from 16kB to 2GB of RAM gets called "embedded". Storage is the same but x10.
I would be surprised if there's nothing to use Go for in all that design space, but generalizations are probably plain impossible.
- rkangel 9y agoI agree about the definition of embedded. My personal definition is "doesn't have an MMU".
- TickleSteve 9y agoa significant portion of the embedded market have MPUs (subtly different from an MMU, namely Cortex-M and PIC32 level devices). Not always used tho.
- simias 9y agoBy this definition embedded development will go extinct very soon. And maybe it should. I think as far as software is concerned embedded development is not all that special anymore. Everything is running advanced ARM SoCs that have the same power you'd have on a workstation ~15 years ago. It's still meaningful if you're working on electronics though, you generally have wildly different constraints regarding ECM, power draw, heat dissipation, environmental constraints etc...
- TickleSteve 9y agoNo, the majority of embedded systems are still on Cortex-M level systems, not "A". Despite what the maker-movement and IoT-hype would have you believe, most embedded systems are not running Linux. Bear in mind that the vast majority of processors sold these days are micro-controllers and go into things like electricity meters, light switches, alarm clocks, etc.... mundane stuff.
- pjmlp 9y agoThere are commercial Java and Oberon compiler variants for Cortex-M level systems, though.
- TickleSteve 9y agoTrue, but with practically zero customers.
- pjmlp 9y agoAstrobe is operating since 1997. MicroEJ is operating since 2004. If they had practically zero customers, they would have closed doors by now.
- simias 9y agoSure but it's definitely moving that way in my experience. As the price difference becomes more and more negligible people prefer to stick more fully featured chips in products where it wouldn't have made sense 10 years ago. There's benefit for companies to do that too, developers who can work efficiently on an MMU-less bare metal/small RTOS system tend to be experienced and cost a lot. Now if you run Linux (or maybe even android these days) on your embedded product you can basically have any half competent junior coder develop on it without problem. At the rate this is going I would only be half surprised if my electricity meter ran Linux in a decade, especially since the trend is into making "smarter" ones. Also while Cortex-M are definitely more microcontroller-ish than the A versions they're still pretty impressive beasts compared to the microcontrollers of yore. They can run at frequencies on the order of hundreds of MHz, often come with advanced IPs like USB, ethernet, DMA and more. Maybe we should have an intermediate category for "millicontrollers".
- TickleSteve 9y ago(As someone who has been in smart-metering for the past 6-ish years, and been s/w architect for both elec and gas smart meters, the situation is that the residential meters (i.e. high unit count) demands the cheapest and smallest processor that the s/w will run on. Industrial meters OTOH, are relatively high-cost and can justify a Linux-based device (and indeed there are examples out there that have gone this way). Tho due to commonality with the residential meters, it is more efficient for them to be based on the same hardware generally.