The battle between universal Chip and special chip

At the programme seminar, two programmes were very different. One uses a general-purpose chip, such as a DSP,ARM9,FPGA, a dedicated chip, such as a copy-and-scan facsimile integration. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of the two schemes:

Using a general-purpose chip, the advantages are:

1. Easy to buy chips. Not only depends on one model. Any MCU can be. NXP Arm chip can, Atmel also can, Freescale also line, unlimited models.

2. High portability of software. As long as the use of ARM general system, whether it is ARM9,ARM10, or ARM12, can be very convenient and quick transplant.

3. Facilitate the upgrade. With the development of MCU technology and digital signal processing technology, the general MCU has been developing rapidly, and the processing speed will be faster and quicker.

4. Adopt Linux system, have good expansibility. Linux is a mature operating system, and thousands of people around the world to maintain and update it, support for new technologies is very rapid. For example, Usb3.0,wifi, image graphics processing, etc., can be supported by the community.

The disadvantage is: the use of general-purpose chips, software complexity, the development cycle is long. and may be due to the software, in some performance as a special chip.

And the use of special chips, the advantages are:

1. Software development is easy. All the bottom of the special chip are realized by the chip maker, so as long as the application can, the software complexity is not high.

2. Excellent performance. Special chip, the internal use of a single task, and a lot of hardware to achieve, so the performance is excellent.

Disadvantages:

1. Not easy to buy. Because the use of dedicated chip is not a lot. Therefore, the quantity production is not many, is not easy to buy.

2. Not easy to expand. Because the function of the special chip all die, so, future if add function, will not be satisfied.

3. Subjection. Because of the limitations of dedicated chips, it is easy to break the situation, the long-term use of the maintenance of troops is a huge problem.

4. Software cannot be ported. The software can only be used for some type of chip and not for other chips. So once the chip is no longer available, the software can only be redesigned for the replacement model.

The above exhibits the advantages and disadvantages of universal chips and special chips. For the military industry, the requirements of long-term maintenance, and for different situation, need to change the function, this is completely different from the civil aircraft. The limitations of dedicated chips believe that as time goes on, it will show up slowly. In addition, such as the use of general-purpose chips, supply channels of a variety of 10,000 steps, even if our country during the war was all blocked, can also use domestic MCU chip to replace.

Hu always said, "Do not seek the eternal, insufficient for a moment", of course, hundred schools of thought, the idea can also be, the two implementations of the pros and cons in the future will be slowly confirmed in the actual use. How to decide, see the competent department.