Microcontroller Speed vs. Size???

[~analoger~]

Why are micro-controllers are so slow compared to microprocessors, although they are much smaller in size, which I suppose, should make them faster? Are there any Gig Hertz micro-controllers?

Thanks.

 

[sky_123]

Market forces, obviously.
Just because you may have a need for a GHz micro-controller doesn't mean that the volume consumers of it (washing machines, car radios, etc..) need such a device.

Would you invest millions making a GHz microcontroller for a sale of 1?

 

[~analoger~]

Market forces, obviously.
Just because you may have a need for a GHz micro-controller doesn't mean that the volume consumers of it (washing machines, car radios, etc..) need such a device.

Would you invest millions making a GHz microcontroller for a sale of 1?

So no technical obstacles? I mean for such a tiny device, what would be the miracle they can put there to make it as fast as a multi-GHz processor?

But the market still requires such high speed for example robotics, medical instruments, test and measurment devices, oscilloscopes?

If we talking here about custom ICs, then what makes a difference in the design to have such a speed? Is it the design itself or the materials?

 

[sky_123]

Last post from me on this.
Are you serious?
There are no technical obstacles that can't be solved to put a man on mars. Doesn't mean it will be done at low cost.

How do you think your examples (medical, test, measurement) work today? You make it sound like these don't exist today. They perform the high speed portion using reconfigurable devices like FPGAs or in higher volume custom ASICs. What's the purpose in running the user interface at GHz speed? That will be implemented in a conventional microcontroller. If you want higher performance then just use an Intel i7. If you expect it to cost the same as an 8051 then you're sadly mistaken. And any manufacturer that would place ROM and RAM and an i7 equivalent device on the same chip and call it a microcontroller I suspect that manufacturer wouldn't last long.

 

[~analoger~]

What are those technical obstacles that can be solved but are expensive for the micro-controller market?

 

[HTA]

The driving factor for the microcontroller functions, speed, power consumption and cost(!) are the specific volume applications it is used for. Like Microprocessors for typical data processing application, such as a desktop computer, need high data throughput - resulting in high clock rates. A microcontroller for embedded applications, like controlling a washing machine motor, need specific peripheral I/O functions and memory all on one chip. Cost at the performance needed is here the driving factor.

Enjoy your design work!

 

[~analoger~]

Lets say I'm designing a measurement instrument such as an oscilloscope and need to create a DSP that is fast enough to sample signals at a 10 GS/s, what kind of processor I need in this case?