Is embedded on the cheap possible?

I find that a lot of posts on this embedded group revolve around finding cheap or free tools to build embedded devices. However, in my experience, I've found that productizing real embedded products is anything but cheap. It takes many thousands of dollars to build good hardware, program that hardware, and debug it. You need all sorts of gear from power supplies and logic analyzers to probes and pricey software.

My question is, has anyone successfully deployed an embedded system which was built cheaply? Is it possible to take GCC, linux, and a hundred dollar wiggler to build and deploy an embedded system?

Thanks!

Reply to
speedplane
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On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 01:50:52 -0000, speedplane wrote in comp.arch.embedded:

Developers don't "productize". Marketing dweebs do.

Yes, it is still possible to develop cheap embedded systems, although I don't know that gcc and Linux is necessarily the cheap route.

It is even possible to be financially successful selling them, generally in limited volumes for specialized niche markets.

But it is by no means easy, and the methods don't scale to volume products, or anything sold to the general public where all sorts of legal issues are involved.

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Jack Klein
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Jack Klein

It will rather depend on your definition of cheap. Some embedded systems developed and deployed and costing a couple of million of whatever currency units may be considered cheap in some quarters. On the other hand we do have some people on here who can fully develop embedded systems products that are churned out in their millions and cost less than $5 per pop. It really is a question of how you view the end result.

The reason why we have a number of people on here who are looking for innexpensive development tools and devices is because they have specific aims in mind and it may be one or more of the following:-

  • They are a hobbyist with little money to spend on their hobby. We do still see such people who just like to play with this stuff.
  • They need a part which will meet a functional requirement as part of a product but needs to also meet a cost per unit limit, especially as they are producing so many units.
  • Their development section is not very well funded and they always have to churn out a quality product at minimum cost.
  • They are in the education sector.
  • They are in a Research Establishment where the embedded systems development is not a major part of their function but they need to do it to get what they want.

Of course, some of us are still using tools that we have built up over years of practice and continue to find useful hence their cost has been amortised over the years and it costs us very little to continue to do new developments.

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Paul E. Bennett ....................
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Paul E. Bennett

That would be me. :)

I have been in charge of developing products that ended up being produced at a rate of 100,000 units per hour at a cost of...that's a secret I can't reveal, but the electronics had a total cost of well under a dollar. We didn't use any expensive test equipment or software. Here is *everything* we used to develop the software:

[1] One good programmer who "gets" embedded software development. [2] An assembler that runs on DOS or Linux (BASH, no GUI) that he wrote himself. Any number of free assemblers would have worked just as well. [3] A prototype of the hardware, hand-built on perfboard and powered by a $5 "wall wart" power supply (we could have used batteries). [4] An old Tektronix 465B Oscilloscope. [5] An inexpensive EPROM burner and eraser. [6] The FORTH programming language (custom variant written from scratch for the processor we used). Or, in some cases, straight assembly language.

That's it.

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Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon

gcc is a fine compiler, and I've used it in cases where a vendor has made it part of their tool set (WindRiver and Analog Devices 28xx). I would expect that Linux is as good as Windows CE.

My take on this is that tools and operating systems _always_ have bugs, they _always_ have a learning curve, and they _never_ leave one 100% satisfied. The grief _always_ costs more in man-hours than the product did in dollars. Having to pay for a product and track licenses under those circumstances just adds insult to injury, so I look for free tools when I can...

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Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

When I say productize, I really mean removing all of the bugs.

Reply to
speedplane

IT is using old technology. It can get performance near the 32 bit compilers but is not as competitive at 16 bits and is not available fro many 8 bits

??? Most embedded systems don't use an OS on the target let along large complex ones like Linux or WINCE. (Though I would suggest that Linux is a better bet than WINCE)

ALL software will have bugs.

Not always true

Not always true. Though this is true of FOSS as you don't pay anything for it usually...

Most free tools have licences (and bugs) too. Also the support costs money.

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Chris Hills

So in that case, shouldn't one try to find the best tools regardless of price? It seems that embedded on the cheap may be theoretically possible, but good (expensive) tools, and a good (expensive) OS, are probably the way to go if you can afford it.

Reply to
speedplane

In article , speedplane writes

I have several customers who buy commercial tools, rtos, comms tacks etc without a second thought. When I asked why they said it is cost effective. The tools and SW work saving them much time and grief which far outweighs their cost.

I also have one customer in particular who bitterly regrets going the FOSS rout as it has cost them so much in time (which costs a lot in salaries) that the are seriously late to market.

Mind you I do also know a lot of people using free tools and SW (some FOSS and but most that isn't) who find it is OK for their needs. Though in one case a free tool (not FOSS) actually caused a serious problem that cost a lot of time and money.

As John Ruskin's oft quoted saying states (paraphrased) nothing in life or business is free. Somewhere some one ALWAYS has to pay one way or another.

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Reply to
Chris Hills

Not using GCC, but using the no-cost-license version of codewarrior for HCS12 and a hundred dollar BMD pod, yes. I saved some time by testing the code on a development board, but could have waited for the PCB, as the recommended circuit used there worked the first time.

I have all sorts of test equipment, but generally the first - and quite often only - hardware debugging tool I reach for is a loose LED. It's nice to have a scope of some sort, but you can almost always work around it if necessary. Hooking up a logic analyzer is such a pain that while there's one sitting next to my desk, it hardly ever gets used. And even when used, it generally hasn't helped solve the (software) problem. If the issues were with digital interfaces between state-machine type devices that might be more helpful, but software is usually ammenable to debugging by slowing things down and inserting debug output, judicious use of breakpoints, etc.

Reply to
cs_posting

only if the embedded product is in an emerging market

Reply to
steve

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