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Once again i'm amazed what ALSO has a processor in it. I'm wondering if at some point I'll just see it as normal that nearly every device, no matter how static it may seem, has more processing power than my first computer.
I think the insight is that designing and manufacturing bespoke silicon logic is much harder than slapping an off the shelf ARM core into a design.
Once again i'm amazed what ALSO has a processor in it. I'm wondering if at some point I'll just see it as normal that nearly every device, no matter how static it may seem, has more processing power than my first computer.
A rather surprising number of devices run very powerful application processors. An amusing example is Apple's Lightning to HDMI adapter, which has an ARM SoC with 256MB of RAM and boots a Darwin kernel in order to decode a H.264 compressed video protocol. Depending on what exactly they put into it (wouldn't be surprised if they borrowed the Apple TV chip for a relatively low-volume product like this) it may be more powerful than a fairly recent computer.
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Nothing mind blowing. Processor is cheaper than building analog circuitry. Think about your toothbrush. All important timing parameters are configured digitally and you can easily change it. You can technically do the same with resonators but it would take much more board space, be less precise, require inductors which you want to avoid in the circuit, etc.
You still need to provide the cpu with a clock signal though.
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Pretty much every microSD card has had an ARM cpu core in it since forever. The Bluetooth radio chip in your phone and the RF chip in your car's key fob already have multicore CPUs inside. Even your optical mouse has a multicore CPU in it to handle image processing and translate the optical feed into motion packaged into USB HID frames. Your fast phone charger has a CPU in it to monitor and negociate power delivery t…
Pretty much every microSD card has had an ARM cpu core in it since forever A lot of them use 8051, presumably because it's cheaper and smaller: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing mind blowing. Processor is cheaper than building analog circuitry. Think about your toothbrush. All important timing parameters are configured digitally and you can easily change it. You can technically do the same with resonators but it would take much more board space, be less precise, require inductors which you want to avoid in the circuit, etc.
You still need to provide the cpu with a clock signal though.
Once again i'm amazed what ALSO has a processor in it. I'm wondering if at some point I'll just see it as normal that nearly every device, no matter how static it may seem, has more processing power than my first computer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This fascinates me. Is there a website anywhere that is collecting these sorts of use cases? It seems truly mind blowing something as simple as an electric toothbrush would have a processor in it.
Nothing mind blowing. Processor is cheaper than building analog circuitry. Think about your toothbrush. All important timing parameters are configured digitally and you can easily change it. You can technically do the same with resonators but it would take much more board space, be less precise, require inductors which you want to avoid in the circuit, etc.
Once again i'm amazed what ALSO has a processor in it. I'm wondering if at some point I'll just see it as normal that nearly every device, no matter how static it may seem, has more processing power than my first computer.
I'll start freaking out when radios start appearing in places like this.
These become so low-cost that corporate buyers pretty much have no choice, but to use them.
The result, is things like expensive Bluetooth headsets, crapping out, after a year. I have been through quite a few.
I/O ports see a lot of use (even virtual ones). Those are some of the hardest-working chips in a device. Not a good place for cheap dross; but they are also present in almost every device out there. Lots of money to be made.
To give Apple credit, I think they are fairly serious about keeping the quality of their internals up to snuff.
> cursed looking trampolines
I like that.
BTW: I do think this is an awesome write-up, and things like it, are why I like this place.