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.
Anyone want to buy a few and make the first cluster of HDMI adapters?
Imagine a beowulf cluster of them.
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 to not burn down your house.
Even your basic budget electric toothbrush has a 4-bit CPU inside it made by Swatch.
CPUs cores are in everything these days [happy NSA noises]
A lot of them use 8051, presumably because it's cheaper and smaller: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554
I put into just about everything I build these days regardless of how small it is.
The backlight is going to be a box supplied directly from AC, connecting up to 6 strips of individually addressable WS2812 RGB LEDs, providing up to 10A at 5V (50mA per LED == 200 LEDs at full power). It will be connected using galvanically isolated Full-Speed USB to the PC.
For now I will have some pre-programmed sequences but I plan to make a piece of software that will make it possible to match LEDs to the borders of image on the screen though I have no idea how to do that at the moment.
This works for now because my primary use-case is ambient lighting when the room would otherwise be dark. I'm planning to build some larger-scale higher-density light panels to provide more illumination for those dark winter days.
For prototyping I use both breadboards and perfboards. I use breadboards for small fast prototypes and perfboards when I know I am going to develop it over a longer time or when I have some special requirements (like AC power on board or a component that has 2.54mm pitch but is not breadboardable) that exclude or make it more difficult to use on a breadboard.
For breadboard I would default to use STM32L432 Nucleo-32 which is breadboardable and doesn't use much space.
For perfboard I default on either STM32L452 Nucleo-64 or STM32F303 Discovery. I don't solder them to board but instead just insert it in the board and then put couple of pieces of plastic from 2.54mm pitch header with the metal pins removed. This mounts the board securely in place without having to solder it. I use dupont jumper wires to connect it to the rest of the board where I would typically solder the rest of components (unless I also don't want to solder them in for some reason).
I would typically solder in things that are disposable to me that I don't want to flap around.
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 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.
Not only do you save the costs of using a crystal, you also save two pins - which was useful in the days of 8-pin microcontrollers like the ATtiny85.
As internal RC oscillator drift rates can be as much as 10% (and vary with temperature) they're not precise enough to run a serial connection, let alone a USB connection. That's why products like Arduino tend to go directly to using a proper crystal (which gives you a 0.01% drift rate for a few pennies).
Every chip brand would have their own protocol and provide their own programming hardware that could speak it.
You can also, well, use a regular toothbrush. What is actually important in a toothbrush has nothing to do with electronics.
No, I don't need any special functionality other than to clean my teeth but if you were to design a toothbrush you would most likely be asked to implement those.
I doubt, pretty much anything that has electronic circuitry has got a micro processor - it's an off the shelf component, well understood, much easier to change/modify and test than custom built analog circuitry. For example - what's the option to save any end user settings with analog devises - knobs/potentiometers.... Compared non-volatile memory like NAND, the cost (and space and weight) differences are orders of magnitude.
A couple of examples that I've noticed :
There's a sports good store near here where they attach some form of RFID tag to each item (including individual protein bars), to automate the scanning. That means these are RFID tags intended to be scanned exactly once.
There's also the case of "digital" pregnancy tests, which consist of a regular paper pregnancy test, a processor to read out the results, and an e-ink display to show the results. All of this is included in the single-use disposable predictor stick.
Already way way way way past that point. There's an article that does the rounds on here about it, but I can't remember the name.
Just as useful, although currently still more likely to be done with barcode scanners is to identify the products in the logistics chain. Right now you need scanning ports with at least 4 cameras/scanners or humans manually scanning each barcode, with RFIDs the port would be simplified further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAm7qAKAXwI
I still agree that it's amazing that our society can make functional structures with feature sizes in the nm/µm ranges so cheaply that we can afford to throw them away.
I think a lot of projects will be targeting ARM CPUs in the next era of computing, and I hope one day we will see entire processes moving off the cpu and onto peripherals.
Give me a RAID controller that can run Postgres directly on it, or an SSD that can run SQLite. Give me a network card that runs eBPF, or even nginx.
I was looking at a sensor package (light, temp, humidity, particulates) earlier and it comes with a cellular modem and a free SIM with a modest data allowance for 2 years to send readings to the cloud.
Plus, all of the stuff controlled locally means the latency is sooooooooo much lower. It's awesome being able to hit a switch in the homeassistant app and have the corisponding plug or light turn on instantly. It's like you're flipping a physical switch.
That is essentially what Thread is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol)
It takes the Zigbee protocol, but adds encryption and makes devices IP-adressable. All of the major players are committed to supporting it, too!