Re: OpenRPN CPU opinions Message #10 Posted by Garth Wilson on 21 Apr 2004, 1:47 a.m., in response to message #9 by Anon
Anon wrote, "The HP33s is based on the 6502, which has been around since 1976. The most popular type of microcontroller core today, the 8051, is from 1980. The PIC was first designed in 1976.
"My PC is based on the intel *86 design, which was introduced in the late 70's and is still going strong.
<end quote> The 6502 family (which has had many improvements since 1976) is still going strong, and the IP holder, WDC (Western Design Center), has no plans to ever discontinue it. Their 65c02's will all do a guaranteed minimum of 14MHz, and most will do 20MHz (which is worth about 40MHz of a PIC16 if the PIC can do the job at all. I have plenty of experience with both). I understand that one of WDC's licensees has a 65c02 core running at 200MHz in a custom IC, meaning about 50 MIPS, with maximum total interrupt latency of 70ns (finishing an instruction and carrying out the interrupt sequence), and minimum of just over 5ns with a special trick. The 65c02 does have SToP and WAIt instructions, and have guaranteed spec.s from 5V down to 1.2V, so it's good for battery-powered operation. The 16-bit version is the 65816. What has always attracted me to the 65 family is the surprisingly high power-to-complexity ratio. WDC has standard microcontrollers based on these processors, but they don't have a lot of versions like you can find with some of the other families. Most people don't realize they own 6502's, because they're embedded in so many products, from camcorders and VCRs to even life-support equipment. In fact, more 6502 cores are going into products today than at any previous time in history-- 200,000,000 per year, according to WDC.
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