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It's really easy to over react because of the silicone shortage, but in many cars these chips are replacing physically manufactured parts or significantly incre
by SkyPuncher 5y ago
It's really easy to over react because of the silicone shortage, but in many cars these chips are replacing physically manufactured parts or significantly increasing efficiency in a way that isn't possible with physical based components.
Electronic fuel injection is a _great_ example. Much of modern fuel efficiency stems from the fact that an engine can accurately control fuel in the cylinder based on a bunch of factors. Not only does this system require physically fewer materials, it uses less gas (in turn saving production effort).
- baybal2 5y agoI think you are misunderstanding me. What I mean under a computer is a Turing complete machine. A circuit just doing some LP solving, or PID is not necessarily a computer.
- SkyPuncher 5y agoBy that explanation, I actually 100% confident I'm understanding you correctly. Most of the functionality of these chips can be represented in some form of hardware. However, that hardware is often much more expensive, significantly less flexible, and likely significantly bulkier.
- rcxdude 5y agoVery little applications strictly need a turing complete machine. However microcontrollers are ubiquitous because they are so flexible. One chip does the job of many, and without needing to be specialised, allowing all applications to take advantage of the economies of scale in semiconductor manufacturing. (Also as pointed out here you drastically underestimate the complexity of a modern ECU)