Thread: Just wondering....
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Unread 24-06-2002, 00:37
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Software, Hardware... ...difficult to draw the line...
Posted by Joe Johnson.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 12/10/2000 12:25 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: Just wondering.... posted by Matt Leese on 12/10/2000 10:17 AM MST:



CE is one of those area where the line between software and hardware gets very blurry.

The decision to put some routine in so-called firmware or to make an offchip circuit do the processing often comes down to decisions having nothing to do with coding and circuits. The questions often boil down to things like Can I save a dime per board by leaving XXX out and doing it in software? or Can I do some other task with the added CPU time if I offload the processor by moving this or that off chip to pre-processing circuit? or even I know I can save money if I do this feature in software, but do I have the programmers and/or programming time if I do?

Bottom line: Neither Computer Science Majors nor Computer Engineers are likely to be seen in the unemployment line any time soon ;-)

I expect the software/hardware ballet to continue for a long, long time!

Joe J.

P.S. Most of the latest chips from Motorola and company have so many and so powerful on chip peripherals that the lines between software, firmware, and hardware are even more confusing. Motorola's MPC555 for instance has about a dozen auxilary I/O devices ONBOARD. Many of these are effectively processors in there own right. Extremely powerful, but also extremely complex to implement. It is hard to imagine going wrong by going into computers.


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