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PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:17 am 
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This is me playing a bit of Devil's Advocate here, but... it's as the topic title says. I'm also mildly annoyed b/c ppl are wondering "why not use ARM, etc etc".

With the general preference toward ARM for low power designs, and competition from other microcontrollers and other embedded solutions, it seems like WDC has it's work cut out for them to keep their potential customers and attract new ones. For better or worse, most embedded work seems to be done in C, C is best optimized for register machines, and the 65xx series does not make a great register machine. Although one can argue the single cycle memory access time alleviates this.

Perhaps this is because ARM and other designs are more publicized/compared to x86 (which arguably is the most well-known architecture), but I can't think of any commercial designs where a 65xx is used. But obviously, WDC is still in business, and the fact that they switched fabs recently suggests to me that WDC's partners have confidence in them. IIRC, VIA also does business with them/is an important customer. To that end, can anyone who might have information tell me how WDC is doing in the market, as well as how frequently 65xx is actually used in commercial projects? Bonus points if there are actual products which you can link :)!


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 2:14 am 
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Reading the front page of their website http://westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/ should put any concerns to rest. They're apparently doing great, and 6502 processors are at the core of hundreds of millions of custom ICs sold every year, for automotive, industrial, appliance, toy, and even life-support applications. You may own several you didn't even know about.

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 3:17 am 
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As Garth noted, 65xx hardware is everywhere, and there seems to be no end to it.

WDC is a privately-held corporation, which means they are not obligated to publicize their financial results. So we don't have any idea as to the extent of their profitability. However, my educated guess is their annual gross sales are around 10 million USD.

cr1901 wrote:
For better or worse, most embedded work seems to be done in C, C is best optimized for register machines, and the 65xx series does not make a great register machine. Although one can argue the single cycle memory access time alleviates this.

I agree that the 65C02 is not optimal for use with C, or for that matter, with many other compiled languages, especially those that are heavily stack-oriented (I'm not referring to Forth's data stack). In that respect, the '816 is the better choice, as it has instructions needed to easily generate and access stack frames.

From the little bit of experimenting that I have done with it, I've seen that WDC's C compiler generates pretty efficient object code, suggesting that it was carefully optimized for use with the 65Cxx MPUs. It comes into its own with the '816, since much of the hoop-jumping needed with the 65C02 to handle the stack is part of the '816 instruction set.

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 4:53 am 
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cr1901 wrote:
... Bonus points if there are actual products which you can link :)!

I would really enjoy seeing some links as well.

Mike


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 6:02 am 
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cr1901 wrote:
This is me playing a bit of Devil's Advocate here, but... it's as the topic title says. I'm also mildly annoyed b/c ppl are wondering "why not use ARM, etc etc".

With the general preference toward ARM for low power designs, and competition from other microcontrollers and other embedded solutions, it seems like WDC has it's work cut out for them to keep their potential customers and attract new ones. For better or worse, most embedded work seems to be done in C, C is best optimized for register machines, and the 65xx series does not make a great register machine. Although one can argue the single cycle memory access time alleviates this.

Perhaps this is because ARM and other designs are more publicized/compared to x86 (which arguably is the most well-known architecture), but I can't think of any commercial designs where a 65xx is used. But obviously, WDC is still in business, and the fact that they switched fabs recently suggests to me that WDC's partners have confidence in them. IIRC, VIA also does business with them/is an important customer. To that end, can anyone who might have information tell me how WDC is doing in the market, as well as how frequently 65xx is actually used in commercial projects? Bonus points if there are actual products which you can link :)!


ARM Assembly language has more involved than what you see on the 6502. Google ARM assembly language and see what the commands are.
ARM is something I've been trying to become involved in so I have a couple of different books on ARM and some of them are fat books and some of the authors charge whatever they want. I have two development boards that I bought off of Ebay and one from Mouser.
ARM is something that may require a Jtag cable or proprietary STlink.

I would like to get rid of the new way of programming the ARM chips with compilers and go with the old way (Machine Language Monitors), boot roms, etc.
I still have reading and a few more things to buy and I want to do things I've never done before but we'll eventually see.
It is fun to learn something new when there aren't a ton of tutorials or a lot of friends to push you to get into it when you are a newbie like myself who hasn't programmed a microcontroller before.

Quote:
Quote:
Here's a quiz:
1) What are the differences between a CM0, CM3, and CM4, and ARM9 ARM architecture?
2) What are the differences between the ARM instruction set an the THUMB instruction set?
3) Compare a simple register-based IO port, a "intelligent" IO port (with set/clear/toggle registers), and a register-based IO port with bit-banding. Write an implementation of Arduino's "digitalWrite" and "digitalRead" function using each model. What other mechanisms have ARM processor vendors provided for fast bit-twiddling?
4) What aspects of the ARM are most likely to make writing cycle-accurate code difficult?
5) compare advantages and disadvantages of link-time vs compile-time definition of peripheral addresses.
6) which features are constant across all ARM CMx chips? Which are most likely to vary wildly? How do the various ARM microcontroller (CMx) vendors differentiate their products?
7) Who currently sells the most (number) of CMx chips? Who sells the most ($$)?
8) Why did TI discontinue ("Not Recommended for New Designs") the entire Stellaris line of CM3 chips?
9) Why did SI Labs pay $170 million to acquire Energy Micro?
10) What aspects of an ARM CMx chip/system add complexity and cost to a hardware design?
11) What aspects of an ARM CMx chip/system contribute to bloated binary executable size? Which are avoidable, and is it worth avoiding?
12) What is CMSIS? How does it related to ASF?
13) Several vendors provide extensive peripheral libraries for their ARM chips. Is there any commonality?

Lab: Build an ARM development environment from source code; for chips from two different vendors.


http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=172420.0
(From post#5)

If you started with the 6502, you probably have all the books, all of the experience, all of the articles. You probably have an eprom burner and dedicated power supply and all of that.
The 6502 is the most documented chip in the world. ARM has proprietary tool chains and stuff and there are differences between devices because I think they may have their own peripherals included depending on the manufacturer which means a slightly different architecture for whomever is building it.
Getting into ARM has its own cost to start up with this hobby and it isn't cheap for me.


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 10:25 am 
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If WDC is doing so well, I wonder if it'd be possible to launch another company who concurrences them... That'd be an interesting business.

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From the little bit of experimenting that I have done with it, I've seen that WDC's C compiler generates pretty efficient object code, suggesting that it was carefully optimized for use with the 65Cxx MPUs

Oh that's good news. Is there also a 6502 version, or only 65c02 ? Can you buy the compiler if you don't buy the chips ?


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 2:25 pm 
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Bregalad wrote:
If WDC is doing so well, I wonder if it'd be possible to launch another company who [competes with] them... That'd be an interesting business.
I don't see how that would be possible.. WDC's business is to license out the 65cxx* design, so to compete you would need to also license out the 65xx* design.. which you can't, because that's WDC's property.

Bregalad wrote:
Can you buy the compiler if you don't buy the chips ?
Sure, you can buy and download from their web page. They don't actually sell chips themselves anyway, you buy those from Mouser and other places. So there's no connection there.

-Tor


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 2:47 pm 
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I wouldn't say the 65xx is WDC property. They might have rights in the name, they might have some patents although I doubt it. They certainly have rights in their masks (if they newer than 10 years old) and in their tools but I would not expect any legal difficulty in selling 6502-like chips. I don't see any business case in it though - WDC's assets will include their toolchain, their support record and continuity with existing licencees. A new business would have a huge difficulty in getting sales traction.

Cheers
Ed


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 6:12 pm 
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I wonder if WDC is financially healthy enough to remedy the problem of faulty serial chip inventory in supply chain warehouses? Other than the original discovery of the problem described here on the forum, I haven't heard of any remedy...


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 9:32 pm 
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Somewhat related to this topic, does anybody know the commercial software business climate around the 65xx? Do most places just develop in-house, or is there a lot of external contracting & middleware?

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 4:49 am 
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Bregalad wrote:
Is there also a 6502 version, or only 65c02 ? Can you buy the compiler if you don't buy the chips?

As Tor noted, you can purchase the WDC SDK on-line. The compiler only supports WDC MPUs. The assembler of course can support an NMOS MPU by simply not using any W65C02 or 65C816 instructions in your program.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 12, 2014 4:26 am 
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BigEd wrote:
I wouldn't say the 65xx is WDC property. They might have rights in the name, they might have some patents although I doubt it. They certainly have rights in their masks (if they newer than 10 years old) and in their tools but I would not expect any legal difficulty in selling 6502-like chips. I don't see any business case in it though - WDC's assets will include their toolchain, their support record and continuity with existing licencees. A new business would have a huge difficulty in getting sales traction.

Cheers
Ed
Does anyone have an idea when the masks might've last been updated? I know WDC switched fabs recently (from Sanyo to ?)- not sure if that's related. Additionally, I highly doubt that the '816 core in, say, my SNES, or someone's Apple ][ was created using the same masks that the '816es to my side (2010 date code) were. :P


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 12, 2014 6:14 am 
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cr1901 wrote:
Additionally, I highly doubt that the '816 core in, say, my SNES, or someone's Apple ][ was created using the same masks that the '816es to my side (2010 date code) were. :P

The '816 started off as a dynamic core design. Some time in the early 1990s (memory is hazy on this) the '816 was converted to a static core. Such a change would have necessitated new masks. The derivative in the SNES was, again if memory is correctly serving me, from the dynamic core '816.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 12, 2014 6:20 am 
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This was the fab change (Dec 2013):
"The W65C816S6 (currently manufactured on a 0.6μm process at Sanyo) has been transitioned to a 0.6μm process currently being used at TSMC for the W65Cxx family."
(ref)
Previously noted:
"The W65C02 Hard Core has been manufactured in 3um (1981), 2um (1984), 1.5um (1986), 1.2um (1989), 0.8um (1992), 0.6um (1996), 0.5um (1997), and 0.35um technology (1998)."

BDD, I thought you (or maybe Garth) had previously said something about the letter suffices in the part numbers, relating it to technology generation. But I can't find it.


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 12, 2014 6:24 am 
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BigEd wrote:
I wouldn't say the 65xx is WDC property. They might have rights in the name, they might have some patents although I doubt it.

Bill Mensch does have at least one solely-owned patent on the 65C816 design that has to do with the abort feature. Of course, all patents have a 20 year exclusivity period, after which anyone can use the art without obligation to the patent holder.

Quote:
They certainly have rights in their masks (if they newer than 10 years old) and in their tools but I would not expect any legal difficulty in selling 6502-like chips. I don't see any business case in it though - WDC's assets will include their toolchain, their support record and continuity with existing licencees. A new business would have a huge difficulty in getting sales traction.

What's interesting is that while the market for the 65C02 is huge, the per-piece revenue is extremely small. I have estimated that WDC's annual sales are around 7-10 million USD. If one considers that in terms of the hundreds of millions of 65C02s and 65C816s that go into custom ASICs, one can see that the royalties that WDC gets from the licenses are modest. However, for a company that only has a handful of employees, WDC is doing quite well.

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