It’s something of a surprise to see a distinguished academic wanting to return people to the days when design was done in garages. Mind you, garages spawned HP and Apple. But somehow one assumed those days were gone.
Now XMOS is coming to market with a chip, and a programming methodology, which could bring back those heady days.
Bemoaning today’s multi-million dollar costs of ASIC and ASSP, XMOS CTO David May said: “It wasn’t like that. You used to be able to do it in a garage."
With XMOS’ $1 chips which are programmed in C, the garage may come back into its own.
But why would May, an FRS and Professor of Computer Science at Bristol University, want to get down and dirty flogging a $1 chip?
“Low-cost is always the most interesting place to be”, says May, “if you drop the price by an order of magnitude the volume goes up by two. That’s the way it is.”
“If you have the technology, peoples’ imagination will do the rest”, adds May, “once you offer them technology for $1, they’ll find interesting things to do with it – like digital jewellery.”
“There’s almost a fashion element getting into the electronics industry these days that makes cycle times shorter”, adds May, “people want to chuck this stuff away every few months.”
"You want the technology side to be easy", says May, "that's what we're delivering."
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