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> There seems to be generally a fear of newer systems languages like Rust It's not fear of newer languages (most of the time). I would love to use Rust for emb
by rkangel 8y ago
> There seems to be generally a fear of newer systems languages like Rust
It's not fear of newer languages (most of the time). I would love to use Rust for embedded in a professional environment but it loses out quickly based on supported platforms.
As leader of an embedded development team, I can't choose a language that will limit the processor parts we can use when we get closer to manufacturing and cost reduction. At volume, many millions spent on software development is dwarfed by cost savings from swapping in the right part.
- oblio 8y agoI've always been curious about this, could you give more details? It would be interesting to know what a 8-bit chip costs vs a 32-bit one, for example.
- rkangel 8y ago8 Bit chips tend be anywhere from 1 cent to $3 in volume. 32 bit chips are usually be from $1 to $20. It doesn't tend to be that extreme a part swap - if you're doing signal processing and UI then you're probably always going to use a 32 bit part. If you're just doing some basic logic with a couple of digital inputs then you're probably always going to use an 8 bit part. You might move 32 bit ARM to 16 bit MSP430 to hit a power budget or similar. Leaving aside processor architecture, the factors that affect cost from most to least (approx) are: Flash size, number of peripherals/features, clock speed, ram size. Basically, sometimes another manufacturer will have a part that meets your feature requirements much cheaper, and then you port the code. The rest of the time, you're just squeezing program space, memory usage and processor usage to reduce the required specs.