Why can't some semiconductor company that specializes in microcontrollers step up and make one IC that does the work of both an 8-bit microcontroller and the microprocessor that these boards contain? Because it seems like a hack to have two parts and it certainly makes software development harder to write two pieces of code every time for one project specification. It seems to me that the Atmel part (the lowly 8-bit microcontroller) is there for the GPIOs, the interrupts pins, the ADC, the PWM pins, the timers, the I2C, SPI, USB, and serial ports, and the microprocessor is there for the large external memory and raw horsepower. Why can't that microprocessor get the lowly bits and pieces of the 8-bit part tacked on, and maybe a few DAC pins for good measure as well?
is there a question ?
raschemmel:
is there a question ?
I refer you to the first and final sentences, the sentences that end in a question mark.
I am no expert but I think that a microcontroller and a microprocessor are 2 types or components with 2 different requirements. Like in a car, you have a transmission and a motor. 2 different components that make a whole. Right now with the beagle bone black and soon to be Tre We a have a Linux operating system that is currently geared towards traditional computing using a keyboard mouse and display. Basically a glorified word processor. However this opens up new possibility to the micro controller world. Really looking forward to the Arduino TRE.
A classic example is with Android. Based on linux, a smart phone is offering a lot of feature and I would not be surprise that Android could jump in. In fact it as already started.
The Arduino - as a whole - represents a "hobbyist" and "low end" commercial market.
However successful it undoubtedly is, it pales into insignificance beside the "real" markets. You surely do not believe that genuine Arduinox and all the clones together make up an even vaguely significant portion of Atmel's production of 328s and 2650s, do you? Or that the Raspberry Pi accounts for a meaningful proportion of the market of its ARM processor?
The combination of a serious ARM processor and a hopefully more robust processor for "bit-banged" I/O may be appropriate to the experimenter, but in a commercial product, you simply harden your interface (only as far) as required, and pack it into a case with no expectation of further fiddling.
Paul__B:
The Arduino - as a whole - represents a "hobbyist" and "low end" commercial market.However successful it undoubtedly is, it pales into insignificance beside the "real" markets. You surely do not believe that genuine Arduinox and all the clones together make up an even vaguely significant portion of Atmel's production of 328s and 2650s, do you? Or that the Raspberry Pi accounts for a meaningful proportion of the market of its ARM processor?
The combination of a serious ARM processor and a hopefully more robust processor for "bit-banged" I/O may be appropriate to the experimenter, but in a commercial product, you simply harden your interface (only as far) as required, and pack it into a case with no expectation of further fiddling.
Interesting. Please shed some light on the real market and commercial product please.
Please shed some light on the real market and commercial product please.
I don't know why you are posting this question here. We don't make arduino product marketing decisions . Why don't you direct your question to the departments that handle those decisions . Wouldn't you have a better chance of getting an answer to a question that is based on so many factors, none of which we have control over ?
Sorry I am not the one who started this post. However am curious in learning about other micro controller products that are commercial or open source. I do like the arduino yet curious.
Paul__B:
The Arduino - as a whole - represents a "hobbyist" and "low end" commercial market.However successful it undoubtedly is, it pales into insignificance beside the "real" markets. ...
I fully agree with you. But that the Arduino could use a "best of both worlds" component surely doesn't imply at all that it is the only application that could use such a component.
Pierre7:
Sorry I am not the one who started this post. However am curious in learning about other micro controller products that are commercial or open source. I do like the arduino yet curious.
Commercial is commercial - automotive, appliances, toys, Internet devices and such.
"Open Source" implying "hobbyist" and development systems include (to a limited extent - the video is not fully Open Source) the Raspberry Pi, PIC/ Stamp, MSP430 and a couple of others less readily to mind.
JoeN:
I fully agree with you. But that the Arduino could use a "best of both worlds" component surely doesn't imply at all that it is the only application that could use such a component.
As I said before, this particular form of "twin processor" is really a developmental novelty, not something anyone generally needs in production as whatever the lesser chip (the AVR) does is then assimilated into the firmware of the more capable chip.
The usual rule is you get what you pay for but after reading thousands of posts I can't remember complaints about quality or value in arduino products. If you include the clones then your talking about a $3 Pro-Mini. How can anyone complain about that ? If you want more power , pay more money.
BTW-It's very hard to find prices for the higher end board. The above was the only link I could find for prices of some higher end boards.
raschemmel:
The usual rule is you get what you pay for but after reading thousands of posts I can't remember complaints about quality or value
in arduino products. If you include the clones then your talking about a $3 Pro-Mini. How can anyone complain about that ?
If you want more power . Pay more money.
http://www.robotshop.com/en/single-board-computers.htmlBTW-It's very hard to find prices for the higher end board. The above was the only link I could find for prices of some higher end boards.
Great. Post. Thanks.
Found this interesting article. it is a year old but give a glimpse of the micro controller market
JoeN:
Why can't some semiconductor company that specializes in microcontrollers step up and make one IC that does the work of both an 8-bit microcontroller and the microprocessor that these boards contain? Because it seems like a hack to have two parts and it certainly makes software development harder to write two pieces of code every time for one project specification. It seems to me that the Atmel part (the lowly 8-bit microcontroller) is there for the GPIOs, the interrupts pins, the ADC, the PWM pins, the timers, the I2C, SPI, USB, and serial ports, and the microprocessor is there for the large external memory and raw horsepower. Why can't that microprocessor get the lowly bits and pieces of the 8-bit part tacked on, and maybe a few DAC pins for good measure as well?
The BeagleBone Black (and other variants) have all of the described I/O functions, the Raspberry Pi has all but the ADC, and there are many others that aren't as hobbyist friendly.
One problem is that these devices commonly run a non-realtime preemptive multi-tasking operating system which isn't conducive to low level GPIO bit banging. The BeagleBone, in addition to its ARM processor has two on chip high performance (200 MHz/32 bit) realtime microcontrollers that can directly access all I/O, but programming them is non-trivial.
The logic behind the Yun and Tre is that they retain the accessible Arduino development system for low level processing while tacking on the high level functionality of a Linux based system.
One concern I have not seen addressed with the Ti Sitara (e.g. BeagleBone) is security. If the on-die bare metal can indeed access the same devices (and memory?) as the main processor how could such a device be secure? I do bonehead things with the AVR, so it would be a disaster if the AVR had access to my main computers devices and/or memory.