ARM Drives Momentum In Microcontrollers With Keil Acquisition
A new 8051 design is a potential lost ARM or cortex design I'd have to disagree. Some no doubt think that way, but there's a world of difference between an ARM7 and an 8051. Drew, I think you are making very valid points from a technical point of view. My point is however that this can not be ARM Ltds point of view. Basically, both you and ARM can not be both right at the same time. I think that the big differences you describe in 8051 micros and ARM micros is the problem ARM wants to solve with their new cortex, and buying Keil is going to "accelerate" this as it reads in the pressrelease. So for ARM, who now controls Keil, every new 8051 design is a lost ARM or cortex design, and every new Keil 8051 compiler support agreement renewing is a delayed ARM or cortex design. Good or bad? It depends on what your plans are using ARM micros. My guess - if you plan to stick with 8051 for a while, dont expect ARM to provide you with good tools and support in the long run... Pessimistic? Yes, but I have seen it happen before. Best Regards Joseph
as Robert Storm Petersen (a danish humorist from the mid-1900s) said: "it is difficult to predict, especially the future" I will not venture there. However about one thing that has been in some of the above posts i have the following comment: If the ARM acqusition of Keil is going to make a difference it will be what it should be, namely that the attempts to make the '51 handle gigantic jobs will cease. The '51 projects that truly belong on a '51 will still be '51 projects whatever ARM does with Keil. When Borland killed Brief, CodeWright arose to the challenge, I have no doubt that a good '51 development package will be available for the forseeable future whatever ARM does. Erik
There's still a number of quality 8051 compiler vendors. If ARM kills Keil C51, they won't force a switch to ARM; they'll just lose those sales to another compiler vendor. I don't quite get the cortex thing from a software point of view. We have enough problems designing chips without having to design a semi-custom processor, too. And there's no way a 3rd-party compiler is going to be able to cope with arbitrarily deleted instructions or registers. Sure, it makes the core smaller, but then you have a core with no software support. When Borland killed Brief, CodeWright arose to the challenge And now they've killed CodeWright. Well, perhaps SlickEdit can rise to the challenge.
I also share the concerns regarding Keil's C51 compiler, we are probably using one of the very last versions of this fine compiler. There is no way ARM will let its new acquired assets to continue working on something other than ARM cores. If am wrong then ARM would not have acquired Keil in the first place, would it? Later...
There is no way ARM will let its new acquired assets to continue working on something other than ARM cores. If am wrong then ARM would not have acquired Keil in the first place, would it? No, they wouldn't. I am however moved by the engineering mind separation from the business mind. The show must go on. Discussing pointers and floating point speed and correctness in this forum. The "ARM owns Keil and they (ARM) want to stop you folks from using 8051" news is sort of peripheral noise. Get your project completed, don't tell your boss you're doomed in the long run... Leave the "business stuff" to someone else. I'd better stop here, I'm a cynic by nurture.
ARM can't kill use of 8051s by killing Keil. All they can do is move the users to IAR or Tasking or whoever. Note that this means that they lose money, since they won't be selling any 8051 tools. Not to say that no executive ever makes a stupid decision, but all such a move would do is cut ARM's income. And it certainly won't win them any goodwill with the engineers or executives that suddenly have to switch. People will follow the path of least resistance in such a situation, and that path is to adopt another tool vendor, not completely redesign your hardware from scratch, and particularly not with product from a company that has (a) just annoyed you and (b) just demonstrated that if you do use their stuff, you can't really count on long-term support if it stops being trendy. Keep in mind that ARM (proper) has no products. They just license IP. This means they have lots of cash pouring in but nothing to spend it on. Most companies in that position try to buy other companies for various degress of integration or diversification. ARM's own ARM development tools were pretty weak. They can now replace those with Keil, and perhaps capture some of the market that promptly leaves to buy 3rd-party tools rather than use the ones from ARM.
It is interesting to note that there have been no updates to the C51 product for over a year. I wonder if it makes any sense to renew my subscription.
"It is interesting to note that there have been no updates to the C51 product for over a year. I wonder if it makes any sense to renew my subscription." I heard a rumour that version 8 was due out soon, but I should point out that that was before the takeover.