Embedded systems that have to keep running
Selecting a part for a product with a ten-year service life is a sourcing decision wearing an engineering costume. Peripherals and clock speed decide whether the design works. Availability decides whether it ships in…
The TMS32010 shipped in 1983. It had 144 words of on-chip data RAM, a 16 by 16 multiplier that produced a result in one instruction cycle, and a Harvard architecture that let it fetch…
VMEbus was specified in 1981 around the Motorola 68000 and the Eurocard mechanics that European instrument makers already had on the shelf. Forty years later there are still power stations, particle accelerators, radar installations…
PC/104 solved a mechanical problem before it solved an electrical one. An industrial controller that has to survive vibration cannot rely on a card edge sitting in a connector that was designed for a…
Selecting a part for a product with a ten-year service life is a sourcing decision wearing an engineering costume. Peripherals and clock speed decide whether the design works. Availability decides whether it ships in…
A real-time system is not a fast system. It is a system whose worst case is known. The distinction decides the architecture, the operating system, and often the processor, and it is the point…
The TMS32010 shipped in 1983. It had 144 words of on-chip data RAM, a 16 by 16 multiplier that produced a result in one instruction cycle, and a Harvard architecture that let it fetch…
TMS320: the DSP family that taught fixed point
The TMS32010 shipped in 1983. It had 144 words of on-chip data RAM, a 16 by 16 multiplier that produced a result in one instruction cycle, and a
CompactPCI: PCI in a Eurocard
By the mid-nineties the PC industry had a fast, cheap, well-supported bus, and the industrial world had mechanics that could survive a factory floor. CompactPCI, published in 1995,
Latency budgets: what a deadline actually costs
A real-time system is not a fast system. It is a system whose worst case is known. The distinction decides the architecture, the operating system, and often the
Choosing a microcontroller you can still buy in 2033
Selecting a part for a product with a ten-year service life is a sourcing decision wearing an engineering costume. Peripherals and clock speed decide whether the design works.
PC/104: stacking instead of a backplane
PC/104 solved a mechanical problem before it solved an electrical one. An industrial controller that has to survive vibration cannot rely on a card edge sitting in a
VMEbus: the rack that outlived its industry
VMEbus was specified in 1981 around the Motorola 68000 and the Eurocard mechanics that European instrument makers already had on the shelf. Forty years later there are still