$50 million contract for a next-generation processor for use in space has been awarded to Microchip Technology

PIC18F02 ??

Cheers

On a sunny day (Thu, 18 Aug 2022 12:00:38 -0400 (EDT)) it happened Martin Rid <martin snipped-for-privacy@verison.net wrote in <tdlnnf$13ihn$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

I like PIC micros, using 18F14K22 in many projects:

Those PICs are probably more powerful than what Apollo used to the moon and back as computer.

And NASA wants to go to Mars.. so.. bit of math sine lookup table (used that too in that PIC)

But the article is talking about something more powerful...

Too bad US will have to pay landing rights to China when it gets there.. the speed NASA moves... And Elon out, busy selling SpaceX shares to buy Twitter ..

I find the pic's clunky to work with. Why would you design a crc flash memory scanner that only accepts words, when the standard ccitt crc is by byte. ARM's on the other hand are a joy. If I had a choice, I'd send the ARM onto space. And what is exactly in the rovers?

Cheers

If you follow Microchip closely, they are already heading into PIC32CM (Cortex ARM based).

"Radiation-hardened central processor with PowerPC 750 Architecture: a BAE RAD 750 Operates at up to 200 megahertz speed, 10 times the speed in Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity's computers"