Future of SX
william chan
Posts: 1,326
We all know that Ubicom is not going improve further on the SX line of microcontrollers.
The will be no new SX processors.
But how long can the current SX offering last before it fades away?
Newer microcntrollers have more Flash, more RAM and built-in runtime eeprom.
We also need USB enabled controllers.
Some have suggested upgrading to the IP family.
But those processors have more than a hundred pins each !
A lot of applications do not need 100 pins processors.
What does the future hold for the SX?
It seems very bleak at the moment.
William
The will be no new SX processors.
But how long can the current SX offering last before it fades away?
Newer microcntrollers have more Flash, more RAM and built-in runtime eeprom.
We also need USB enabled controllers.
Some have suggested upgrading to the IP family.
But those processors have more than a hundred pins each !
A lot of applications do not need 100 pins processors.
What does the future hold for the SX?
It seems very bleak at the moment.
William
Comments
Ubicom has no plans to obsolete the SX. We're tightly wound up with them in a Master Distributor Agreement intended to insure that the SX family is properly supported, distributed and marketed for the long-term. The agreement brings many benefits to our SX customers. It is a very successful revenue generator for Ubicom. The switch towards the IP was a result of a name change, refocus of marketing and R&D, change of management, etc. There is very little connection between the SX and the IP family except that both parts are made by Ubicom. Aside from that, the "connection" was one they made with marketing intent and the IP parts really provide little migration path for SX customers (unless they were doing internet-oriented devices).
The SX family would only "fade away" if there were no sales on the part, though new versions are unlikely because of their success with the IP line.
As far as it being the right part to use, you need to choose the microcontroller that is right for your project. If you need resources the SX does not provide, look at the AVRs and PICs - maybe they do. Sometimes it isn't speed you need, but memory or built-in hardware.
Parallax is commited to supporting and supplying SX parts. You can see this by the improvements we've made to our documentation, hardware, and pricing. Sit tight for a few more weeks and you'll see another reason to use the SX.
The SX is far from "old" considering that it is still the fastest 8-bit microcontroller in the world. Our customers still use 555 timers and the original BASIC Stamp came out in 1992.
We normally have 35-50K units in our inventory to fill customer orders. We ship these for production orders around the world.
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey
Parallax, Inc.
Glad to hear of parallax support for the SX series processors! It's really difficult
designing anything, because of the short life cycles of many parts out there. Makes
me feel that my SX-Key investment was worth it!
As for·the other reason to use the SX, give us a hint! Or at least email us when
it arrives! [noparse]:)[/noparse]
-Dan
·
···· I would like to ask also for a HINT PLEASE !!!
1. ) A socket for the SX20, Sx28, SX48 & SX52 to .1 inch lead spacing ??
2.) 100 MHZ parts ??
3.) 75 MHZ Resonators ??
4.) Debug internals documentation ??
5.) MORE EXAMPLE CODE !!
·
Ken Gracey
Parallax, Inc.
We need your continuing input -- if you got blacklisted, we'd lose all those cool bargains you arrange.
We can easily wait for a few more weeks -- or a few weeks after that, if that's what it takes.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Jon Williams
Applications Engineer, Parallax
Dallas Office
Terry
Terry
Hey Ken, How about sponsering a contest on SXList? Guess the new·toy and win the first unit?
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
---
James Newton, Host of SXList.com
james@sxlist.com 1-619-652-0593 fax:1-208-279-8767
SX FAQ / Code / Tutorials / Documentation:
http://www.sxlist.com Pick faster!
Thank you for your comforting response on the SX.
Actually Parallax is doing a fantastic job reviving the SX.
I hate to be a party pooper, but manufacturers like my company get jittery when parts reach a dead-end.
Some questions :-
1. If the SX is not going to be obsoleted, why was the SX18AC/DP, SX18AC/SS and SX20AC/DP obsoleted?
2. If the SX is a good revenue generator for Ubicom, why can't Ubicom set up a small design team ( 3-5 persons ) to continue improving the SX?
Thanks a lot.
1. Ubicom would answer "they were slow movers, expensive to make due to low volume and we could benefit by streamlining our product offering if we end-of-lifed them". This was a big company approach, driven by practical financial considerations rather than customer service (which causes companies to make decisions for their customer's sake even though they might not be cost-effective decisions). They wanted to sell millions, not 10s of thousands so these became obsoleted parts.
2. First, many of their SX design/support/marketing staff have moved on to other companies (the SX came out in 1997 in the middle of dot-com employment opportunities). Now SX continues as a solid product but without customer support from them (that's why we signed a Master Distributor Agreement - so we could support designs - but not new versions of the SX). Second and more importantly, about four years ago the company decided to focus on internet communication processors like the IP2K. Along with this came management change and new product planning. The IP2K/3K line clearly had opportunity to generate much more revenue than the SX. And now the IP2K/3K line is successful and achieving what they expected. You can find it in all kinds of wireless internet products.
You could always inquire at Ubicom about the long-term life of the SX. They'd tell you that the foreseeable horizon has no changes to the SX line. . . and call Parallax if you need some help. . .
Oh, one more thing to help your situation. You can "bond" SX parts when you purchase them to guarantee a long-term supply. This is something our purchasing agent routinely does for all of our designs, even if the supplier is a big corporation. If you need to do this ask Jim Carey, our Sales Manager.
Ken Gracey
Parallax, Inc.
The SX was my first development environment and I chose it somewhat by throwing darts. I was initially attracted to the SX because I was blown away at the thought of a 50 MIPS chip for five bucks. Being essentially a clone of the PIC 16C5x series, my investment in learning the chip would be easily applied to the PIC line as well. Given the sheer number of PIC chips and programmers (most of which I came to discover are evil hacks) I was quite simply afraid to dive into that pool. The *REAL* thing that sold me on the SX was the SX ToolKit. The combination of programmer, ICD, protoboard, sample chips, and dead-tree documentation for $129 just couldn't be matched anywhere else.
Now, after having had a few months to play with the chips and do a lot of reading, I've learned a lot. I'll try to summarize below.
First off, there is a huge difference between the hobbyist market and the commercial market. In the commercial market, chip decisions are based on pennies and microwatts. You never buy more than you need, and you try to get what you need at at the absolute cheapest price. In many respects, the SX in a niche chip. There simply aren't that many commercial applications for a very high speed 8-bit uC with limited I/O capabilities. True you *can* to A/D, D/A, PWM, UART all in software, but that requires high speed which means high current, and a mess of RF to deal with.
But for the hobbyist, this really doesn't matter -- most hobbyists aren't concerned with RF and power consumption. The ability to take a single chip and bend it seven ways from sunday is *far* more valuable. The chip might cost a few bucks more than is necessary, but this is trivial compared to all the other costs (like PCB construction) in a hobbyist project.
So after playing with the SX for a bit, and taking the time to investigate other uCs, I realized the ways in which the SX was lacking. No internal EEPROM, relatively limited FLASH/SRAM. no free C compiler, and dealing with all the banking/paging associated with the 12-bit architecture is a real PITA.
This immediately lead me to think. Hmm. How could I get arround all these limitations with the SX? Well, I'll add some external flash and SRAM, code up an interpreter in SX assembly, and put the byte code in external flash and use the external SRAM for variable storage. A few days later I realized I had re-invented the Basic/Java stamps.
Now, I'm not a fan of BASIC, and at $79, the JStamp is way to expensive for me. For a while I considered having a generic stamp-type device manufacturerd. Surface-mount components are *cheap* and it seemed to make a lot of sense to put all the common SMD components on s DIP header just like the Stamps. You'd have an SX52, a flast rom chip, an SRAM chip, a MAX232, and perhaps even an FTDI245 all on one DIP header. Since I'm a big fan of the open source movement, I see this is the kind of thing that could really take off once you get the community building interpreters and development tools. But this requires a lot of start-up cash, so it never became anything more than a fleeting idea.
But in the meantime I started exploring some of the other microcontrollers. The first one was the Atmel AVR line. The big advantage of the AVR is that you can use the free GCC compiler. And they all use the *same* core, all the way from the 8-pin units that can be picked up for a buck each all the way up to the ATMega128. And in many ways, the ATMega is not much different than all the components of the Stamp on one chip.
And then I discovered the dsPIC line. You won't find much reference to these chips on the web, but they are not much more expensive than the SXs and include a wide array of hardware features.
And then there is the recently announced Atmel AT91SAM7 chip which gives you a 32-bit ARM7 core with between 32KB and 512KB of ROM, and between 8KB and 64KB of RAM and USB 2.0 support for as little as $3 in qty. 10,000, which will probably translate into about $6 in single units.
In this perspective, the SX is going to face an uphill battle in the very near future. There is no question that the "killer app" for the SX chip is as part of an interpreted engine, and it was a very logical decision for Parallax to acquire the technology given their dominance in the Stamp market.
I don't know how large or profitable the Stamp market is, but if you pick up a robotics or hobbyist magazine these days, it's all about the Stamp. There is no question that the Stamp concept made a lot of sense before flash PICs became available and cheap, but I wonder how long this will be the case...
In my opinion, what Parallax has to offer more than anything else is not the raw chips or technology itself, but the fact that they present the technology in an easy to use and understandable way. I'm not entirely sure it would be prudunt for Parallax to invest a lot of cash in future development of the SX. It doesn't take much to imagine how cool an AT91SAM7-based stamp would be and how trivial it would be to put together the hardware. Technologically, it pretty much blows away what you can build from an SX and discrete components. But what would really sell such a device is not so much the technology, but rather the packaging and user support.
Anyways, those are just the random ramblings of someone new to the field, and likely represent a mix of ignorance combined with the insight that can often provide...
-p.
"But what would really sell such a device is not so much the technology, but rather the packaging and user support. "
What good is the latest wiz-bang chip if you can't get tools or support for it ?
IMO The SX is far from dead, yes it is a little dated, and sure some EEPROM would be nice, but as you have said, make a little 24 pin dip board with an SX and some EEPROM, maybe a ADC or two.
The tools and support are where the hobbist is, price price price is where the commercial app is. And the SX is not a bad price either.
Bean.
Post Edited (Bean) : 10/27/2004 5:09:28 PM GMT
When I was looking for a highly versatile microcontroller to implement my ideas upon, I naturally gravitated towards Ubicom (partly due to prior knowledge of them from applying to an open position with the company). With versatility the primary consideration ($30-50/chip isn't bad if you reuse the part over and over), I chose the lowest microcontroller in the IP line. After a few exchanges of email with the company that distributes the IP line, it was fleshed out that I did not represent a large company looking to purchase in 10K quantities. At which point the company's sales associate ceased all communication with me! Highly irritated with the behavior of the company, I decided to go with the SX line instead. Now in retrospect I am very happy that the situation happened as it did because now I am developing on a platform that is well supported by a company (kudos Parallax) and has a large base of like-minded developers. Knowing Parallax's commitment to the hobbyist community by securing the SX line's availability and support for the line only confirms that I ended up making the right·decision. Thanks Parallax.
Paul Baker·