I was browsing the Twitter feeds that Circuit Cellar follows and ran across the link below in the Parallax Semiconductor feed. It a $25 evaluation board for an 8-core microcontroller. That sounds impressive. Why haven't we heard more about this?
With only 64KB EEPROM you won't be running Linux on this (not to mention that it doesn't say what architecture it is base on; I'm assuming it isn't something common like MIPS or ARM) - it's definitely just a microcontroller, but it can do up to "up to 20 MIPS per core." Not sure what applications it is being marketed for. -Tom P8X32A QuickStart Board http://www.parallaxsemiconductor.com/quickstart As an open-source reference design, the P8X32A QuickStart board provides basic Propeller circuitry. ... As a project board, the QuickStart is fully expandable and provides unimpeded access to all I/O pins through an expansion header but includes some button inputs and LEDs to demonstrate programming. With USB power and a selection of QuickStart Project examples, it's also the fastest way to get up and running. How to get a P8X32A QuickStart Board ... People who are not developing high-volume / large-scale commercial products may buy a QuickStart for $25.00. http://www.parallax.com/tabid/514/ProductID/748/Default.aspx Features # Eight resistive touch buttons # Eight buffered LEDs # Buffered USB to serial converter with USB bus power # Up to 30 free I/O pins available through an accessory soc Parallax P8X32A Propeller Microcontroller The Propeller microcontroller, U1, is an 8-core low power microcontroller with 32 KB SRAM and up to 20 MIPS per core. By partitioning separate tasks into separate cores, the Propeller can load programs and features and reallocate resources on the fly, without the overhead of an operating system. Features that often require dedicated hardware can be defined in software and run in parallel. When running at a total of 160 MIPS, the power consumption is usually less than 80 mA. For more information, refer to the Propeller P8X32A datasheet. _______________________________________________ Hardwarehacking mailing list Hardwarehacking@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking
