The biggest challenge for many original equipment manufacturer (OEM) design teams is meeting tight product development timelines with smaller internal teams. So, how can product development teams reduce time even when internal resources have been cut? Here are 10 areas on which to focus.
Tip #3: "Look for Processor Families vs. Processors" recommends PIC16. Really?
In the age when teams report 60-70% of the total engineering time used by *software*, not hardware development, recommending such anachronisms as the PIC is really counter-productive. The baroque PIC CPU hasn't been really designed for programming in C. The CPU has crippled call stack with size of 8 calls including interrupts. Throw in the need for paging and banking together with the single interrupt vector and you have a nightmare of a programming model.
Perhaps you haven't seen the newer line of PIC's. They are specifically designed to be programmed in C. With millions of PIC's implemented I don't know that I'd call it a "nightmare".
One possible problem with purchasing off-the-shelf modules is inheriting any bugs that are hiding in those modules. Been there. At least when you design from scratch you know exactly how it's supposed to work and what to do when it doesn't.
Screaming Circuits provides customized solutions for the quick-turn prototype PC board assembly market. The company assembles prototype, pilot production, and short-run production PC... Read More
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5 comments
write a commentjohn bougs Posted Jul 18, 2012
Where's the beef? the article is missing....
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Frank Eory Posted Jul 18, 2012
I had no problem downloading it. I like the 10 tips too -- good advice for all system designers/integrators.
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Miro Samek Posted Aug 7, 2012
Tip #3: "Look for Processor Families vs. Processors" recommends PIC16. Really? In the age when teams report 60-70% of the total engineering time used by *software*, not hardware development, recommending such anachronisms as the PIC is really counter-productive. The baroque PIC CPU hasn't been really designed for programming in C. The CPU has crippled call stack with size of 8 calls including interrupts. Throw in the need for paging and banking together with the single interrupt vector and you have a nightmare of a programming model.
reply
mtripoli Posted Aug 22, 2012
Perhaps you haven't seen the newer line of PIC's. They are specifically designed to be programmed in C. With millions of PIC's implemented I don't know that I'd call it a "nightmare".
reply
zeeglen Posted Oct 10, 2012
One possible problem with purchasing off-the-shelf modules is inheriting any bugs that are hiding in those modules. Been there. At least when you design from scratch you know exactly how it's supposed to work and what to do when it doesn't.
reply