When will the 8051 and othe 8-bits go away?

On Friday, in article <11cb9a2eeej5bca@corp.supernews.com>
     _see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_ "Guy Macon" wrote:

>My predictions:
>
>  4-bits will only be used for extreme low power.

Throw away items (e.g. muscial cards)...

>  8-bits will never go away.  Perfect for toys, keyboards, etc.

Lots of simple low speed applications don't require anything else
e.g. small security alarm systems, remote temp sensor to serial,
house heating controller.
 
> 16-bits will not exist by the year 2020.

As others have yes and no, either as soft core or for some embedded
apps where there is a cost advantage (on PCB layout) or other
advantage.

> 32-bits will be here forever.  Great size for demanding embedded apps.

Yes..

Above this becomes the problem of NOT processing power but for
an embedded app that is not a 'PC' like appliance, making the boards
small enough with all the front side and other bus issues and the number
of tracks and pins and bus widths using so much board space.

The amount of interconnects on a 32 bit system and more so on a high
speed 64bit system are a pain already.

The amount of chippery connector sizes and debugging is only worthwhile
for dedicated parts of systems (high end graphic controllers) and specialised
systems that are more akin to existing mainframes now.

> 64-bits will not exist by the year 2040.
>128-bits will not exist by the year 2060.
>256-bits will become the top-end.
>512-bits and higher will never happen. Further development will be
>in the direction of massive parallel processing on one die, followed
>by (unless it turns out to be impossible) quantum computers.

More likely to have distributed processing with higher level commands
to multiple processing and I/O processing units. Like having an I/O
processor handling the disk drives and off loading I/O delays to an I/O
processor which deals with the file system, formatting, auto-insert detection
etc.. rather than tying up the main processing parts of the system.

With higher speed networking already having quite a bit of the processing
inside the chip, more of the network stack will exist in the network
processing unit, which hands off complete web pages, files to the
operating system on the main processor, rather than packets.

This is what a lot of mainframes do now and have done for a while
(remembering a Cray system that years ago had a VAX cluster as its
front end I/O processor).

>I don't see 16 bits surviving.  It will be squeezed out by 8 and 32.
>I don't see 64 or 128 bits surviving.  They will be squeezed out by 
>32 and 256.

For the majority of embedded systems (standalone SMALL boxes not 'PC')
I don't see 256 for a long time yet due to the number of interconnects,
unless the system RAM and CPU are on one die and smaller bus exist
externally (Transputer).

Where 16 bits may well survive is in next generation of things like
keyboard and touch screen where less transistors can mean less cost and
power. Possibly a keyboard that has a multi-lingual changeable graphic
layout and works using 16 bit (or more) scan codes to get away from the
ASCII constraint we currently have.

The main constraints on any system are the interconnects and I/O
bottlenecks.

-- 
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>              GNU H8 & mailing list info
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/>             For those web sites you hate

Paul Marciano wrote:
> This is a bit dumb, but let's discuss it anyway.
> 
> The 8051 and other 8-bit microcontrollers have had a long and
> distinguished life so far.  As more and more low power devices appear
> using 32-bit instruction sets such as ARM, I wonder how long it will be
> before 8-bits are no longer selected for new designs.
> 
> 
> Some fun questions for a Friday:
> 
> 1. For NEW DESIGNS ONLY, can you guess at how much life (years,
> decades) is left in 8-bit devices?
> 
> 2. Given microcontroller size/power evolution, do you think
> ARM/AVR/other will end up in the smallest 8-pin(?) microcontrollers and
> 8-bit micros will just fade away?  If so, in what time frame?
> 
> 3. Do you think there is value (to embedded engineers) in settling on a
> single ISA for microcontrollers, such as ARM?
> 
> 
> I like ARM and I also like 8051, PIC and other 8-bits, but ARM is so
> easy to work with (both in 'C' and assembly) that I wouldn't be sorry
> if the 8-bits were retired.

You seem to be unclear on what '8 bit micro' means. If they go into
8 pin devices, how does that mean '8-bit micros have faded away' ?

The answer to this question, is the three P's :
PinCount
PicoJoules
Price

In sheer volumes, 8 bit uC will dominate 32 bit ones for years to come.
Only if you mapped something like shipped-code-size, would they start to
come close.

-jg

8-bit micros will survive as long as they are cheaper to produce than 16-bit 
micros.

"Paul Marciano" <pm940@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:1120239497.939422.59470@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> This is a bit dumb, but let's discuss it anyway.
>
> The 8051 and other 8-bit microcontrollers have had a long and
> distinguished life so far.  As more and more low power devices appear
> using 32-bit instruction sets such as ARM, I wonder how long it will be
> before 8-bits are no longer selected for new designs.
>
>
> Some fun questions for a Friday:
>
> 1. For NEW DESIGNS ONLY, can you guess at how much life (years,
> decades) is left in 8-bit devices?
>
> 2. Given microcontroller size/power evolution, do you think
> ARM/AVR/other will end up in the smallest 8-pin(?) microcontrollers and
> 8-bit micros will just fade away?  If so, in what time frame?
>
> 3. Do you think there is value (to embedded engineers) in settling on a
> single ISA for microcontrollers, such as ARM?
>
>
> I like ARM and I also like 8051, PIC and other 8-bits, but ARM is so
> easy to work with (both in 'C' and assembly) that I wouldn't be sorry
> if the 8-bits were retired.
>
> What are your thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
> Paul.
> 

8051 is dominant only because there are 7 different makers.
Its a very old technology on the verge of being pushed aside.
There are plenty of new 8-bit players waiting to replace the 8051.
Atmel AVR, TI 430, and god forbid the 18 series PIC.


"Paul Marciano" <pm940@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:1120249862.927661.21270@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Guy Macon wrote:
>> Less than 5% of the market compared to 8-bits having 30-40%.
>> http://www.techonline.com/community/ed_resource/feature_article/36930
>
> Thanks for the article pointer, Guy. Very interesting.
>
> Followup question:
>
> Assuming the 8051 is the dominant 8-bit microcontroller for NEW
> DESIGNS(*), do you think it will continue to be, or is there a new
> rising star?
>
> * If my assumption is wrong s/8051/dominant_mcu/
>
> Cheers,
> Paul.
> 

Guy Macon <_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> wrote:

[snip]
:The place where 4-bit processors are still king is at the very low
:power end - watches.  They want that tiny battery to run the device
:27/7 for many years, and fewer transistors still means lower power.
:I don't see that ever changing.
:
27/7 ?  I think your 4-bit watch needs a new battery :-)

But when we have a huge address space, it gets used in a sparse
manner, for virtual files, etc. No normal user wull use 16EB of RAM,
for sure.
That's not to say they won't use the address space.


"Paul Marciano" <pm940@yahoo.com> wrote:
[snip]
:The move to 64-bits is mostly due to the 4GB address limit on 32-bit
:machines that is a real barrier for large systems like database
:servers.  64-bits provides for 16EB of directly addressable memory.
:
:Assuming RAMs double in capacity every 18 months it will take 48 years
:to build systems that hit the 16EB limit.  That assumes it's even
:possible for the RAMs to continue to evolve that far.
:
:I think 64-bits will be with us for 100 years if not longer.  The trend
:now is for parallelism over speed.  Disk drives are still the
:speed-bump for all high performance computing.
:
:Not even Microsoft can drive demand more than 16EB.
:
:Cheers,
:Paul.

The 8051 is pobably popular because it's off-patent by now.

"Paul Marciano" <pm940@yahoo.com> wrote:

:Guy Macon wrote:
:> Less than 5% of the market compared to 8-bits having 30-40%.
:> http://www.techonline.com/community/ed_resource/feature_article/36930
:
:Thanks for the article pointer, Guy. Very interesting.
:
:Followup question:
:
:Assuming the 8051 is the dominant 8-bit microcontroller for NEW
:DESIGNS(*), do you think it will continue to be, or is there a new
:rising star?
:
:* If my assumption is wrong s/8051/dominant_mcu/
:
:Cheers,
:Paul.

Paul Marciano wrote:
>
>Guy Macon wrote:
>
>> Less than 5% of the market compared to 8-bits having 30-40%.
>> http://www.techonline.com/community/ed_resource/feature_article/36930
>
>Thanks for the article pointer, Guy. Very interesting.
>
>Followup question:
>
>Assuming the 8051 is the dominant 8-bit microcontroller for NEW
>DESIGNS(*), do you think it will continue to be, or is there a new
>rising star?
>
>* If my assumption is wrong s/8051/dominant_mcu/

First, it depends on what "dominant" means.  If you count number
of units shipped, Elan/EMC, WinBond and SunPlus are way ahead of
8051, Pic, ARM, etc.  If you count number of engineers working on
a chip, it's the opposite.

In my opinion, for another chip to displace the 8051, it would 
have to have:

[1] Good, free tools. (C Compiler, Simulator/degugger, macro
    assembler, RTOS, etc.)

[2] A bunch of variants (lots of analog I/O, USB, low voltage...)

[3] good cost/performance.

[4] All patents expired.




    

Paul Marciano wrote:

>The move to 64-bits is mostly due to the 4GB address limit on 32-bit
>machines that is a real barrier for large systems like database
>servers.  64-bits provides for 16EB of directly addressable memory.
>
>Assuming RAMs double in capacity every 18 months it will take 48 years
>to build systems that hit the 16EB limit.  That assumes it's even
>possible for the RAMs to continue to evolve that far.

I think that being able to have an instruction that has two 64-bit 
source addresses and one 64-bit destination address embedded in it
will eventually drive the extreme high end to 256 bit instructions
and a 64-bit address space.  I also see the current trend found
in MMX/SSE driving future processors towards 256 bits; a SIMD 
extension that deals with horizontal and vertical adjacent pixels
in 32-bit color is likely to need more than 128 bits.

David R Brooks wrote:

>Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote:
>
>:The place where 4-bit processors are still king is at the very low
>:power end - watches.  They want that tiny battery to run the device
>:27/7 for many years, and fewer transistors still means lower power.
>:I don't see that ever changing.
>:
>27/7 ?  I think your 4-bit watch needs a new battery :-)

Ah.  I forgot that some of you are still living on Sol-3/Terra.
Out here on Alcyone-9, 27/7 is correct.

:)