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Single Chip Linux?

I'm a hardware guy and if the trends that I see continue I see some very interesting things happening soon. For example: As 32-bit micros get more and more embedded memory, it will eventually become practial to ship them with an OS on chip. As an example take the last 32-bit design that I did. It was a 5272 coldfire with 8MB of FLASH, 8MB of SDRAM, and an ethnet PHY on a

72-pin SO-DIMM. Motorola recently released the 5282 with 512KB FLASH, and 64KB DRAM. This isn't enough memory for Linux, but extrapolate the trend out to the next chip cycle and it might be. Is anyone here working on this or looking at the same trend? We've probably all heard the SOC hype, but IMHO it won't be real until the hardware comes with software.
Reply to
Rick Farmer
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Have a look at the AXIS MCM at

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Zoran

Reply to
Zoran Tomicic

32Bit Risc Core ? Any known ? MIPS,ARM,ARC ???

Price ?

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42Bastian
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Reply to
42Bastian Schick

"42Bastian Schick" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@News.CIS.DFN.DE...

AXIS own core ??? I don't know exactly, but I'm working with this product line for 3 years and it's perfect to set-up a decent embedded system...

Ask them, they are fast and efficient...

Reply to
Johann Dantant

I agree .

I don't agree. As flash is a very different process than logic and RAM and as flash cells are huge, on-chip RAM costs a lot of space and money. So I suppose we'll see lots of internal RAM bit no big internal flash on future high-performance processors. Take a look at

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They designed a new series of embedded 32 Bit RISK processors (IP3K). Same have internal 32 Bit program ram and internal dual ported 32 Bit data ram. On one of their white papers they elaborate on their design decisions.

They provide a GNU based SDK that includes a (kind of) multitasking OS but they don't seem to consider a Linux port.

-Michael

Reply to
Michael Schnell

We're already at the point where it is possible. The question is whether it makes any sense. The primary purpose of an OS is to provide a standardized set of functionality, usually across different hardware. If there is value in obscuring the underlying hardware (e.g. for DRM reasons) then it makes sense to ship a chip with an OS preloaded and tell the developer to treat it as a black box.

But for almost any other set of circumstances, it makes far better sense to allow the developer to customize the OS for his own design priorities, or to choose a different OS if needs be; in which case, there is no point pre-flashing anything onto the chip.

Reply to
Lewin A.R.W. Edwards

You don't nessesarily want to hide the underlying hardware, you just want to make it easy to use. In small run embedded designs the time and expense of porting or designing the system (especially the software) is the major expense. The virtualization also frees you from the ball-and-chain of hardware dependency that plagues most embedded designes as well. Yes?

Reply to
Rick Farmer

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