On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <[email protected]> wrote: > C. Scott Ananian wrote on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:30:19 -0400 >> The cost could be further improved by ditching the Atmel AVRs, which >> are very nice to program, but quite pricey -- especially if you need >> to use three (!). Using a single more powerful chip would reduce >> cost. > > That was my point - what is cute from a hobbiest viewpoint isn't what is > best for the users. It is fun to do video 100% in software on a very > limited processor, but the custom chip inside the $12 computer > implementing the NES sprites and fancy backgrounds is much cheaper. For > a TV based application, I bet a PlayStation 1 level graphics solution > would cost less than the AVR chip if done in a serious way.
Integrated circuits are really quite marvelous. They teach you in school that "you pay for pins, not transistors" -- which means simply that IC packaging dominates its cost, so you can squeeze lots of functionality into a chip as long as it fits into the same size package. But in practice it's not even quite true that you "pay for pins" -- for small enough ICs, every given IC seems to cost about the same, no matter what it does or how many pins it has. My current project used a "minimal" audio design that was "just one op-amp". It turns out that the competing "just one integrated codec" solution was the same price -- with a lot more functionality. --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
