Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Paul Rubin Newsgroups: comp.arch.embedded Subject: Re: 64-bit embedded computing is here and now Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:34:43 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 28 Message-ID: <87eedbeybw.fsf@nightsong.com> References: <7eefb5db-b155-44f8-9aad-7ce25d06c602n@googlegroups.com> <87lf7kexbp.fsf@nightsong.com> <5e77ea0a-ef41-4f72-a538-4edc9bfff075n@googlegroups.com> <87czsvesvs.fsf@nightsong.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="8a612fa17c2e7dd40cbaf9074acabd0e"; logging-data="9248"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19t0pCOj9NqlRQLA3SVisQ5" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/26.1 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:P6Wegz1VxaGNUUP/afp+aQgQCo0= sha1:2q87JJevR/Mgyc3oPLwqFswrlLg= Xref: csiph.com comp.arch.embedded:30698 Theo writes: >> Buy yourself a Raspberry Pi 4 and set it up to run your fish tank via a >> remote web browser. There's your 64 bit embedded system. > I suppose there's a question of what embedded tasks intrinsically require >>4GiB RAM, and those that do so because it makes programmers' lives easier? You can buy a Raspberry Pi 4 with up to 8gb of ram, but the most common configuration is 2gb. The cpu is 64 bit anyway because why not? > There are obviously plenty of computer systems doing that, but the > question I don't know is what applications can be said to be > 'embedded' but need that kind of RAM. Lots of stuff is using 32 bit cpus with a few KB of ram these days. 32 bits is displacing 8 bits in the MCU world. Is 64 bit displacing 32 bit in application processors like the Raspberry Pi, even when less than 4GB of ram is involved? I think yes, at least to some extent, and it will continue. My fairly low end mobile phone has 2GB of ram and a 64 bit 4-core processor, I think. Will 64 bit MCU's displace 32 bit MCUs? I don't know, maybe not. Are application processors displacing MCU's in embedded systems? Not much in portable and wearable stuff (other than phones) at least for now, but in larger devices I think yes, at least somewhat for now, and probably more going forward. Even if you're not using networking, it makes software and UI development a heck of a lot easier.