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Robert Cravotta

I'm Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor at EDN since January 2000. My interaction with computers and processors really picked up in 1980 when I created a two-pass, cross-platform assembler targeting an 8-bit z80 core. From there, I had a brief stint in the computer-game industry. I also developed a database system and created a mechanism to safely and dynamically relocate code on a system without a memory-management unit. I spent a number of years automating production-operation processes in a mainframe environment in an Information Systems (IS) group. From there I spent more years developing and working with embedded-control systems including autonomous vehicles, multiprocessor vision systems, power-management systems, and R&D for a dynamically tunable laser-sensor system. My focus evolved during those years from software- to system-level responsibility. I then spent a handful of years directing and overseeing the architecture, migration, and consolidation of independent and informal storage and computing LANs (Local Area Networks) into a single division-wide production computing environment with an Information Technology (IT) group.

My experience working with all these disparate processing architectures helps me identify and share insights with you about differences in the "care-abouts" from one development and operational context to another. My goal is to identify and put words to the issues and challenges facing the different types of developers and problem spaces so that, as an industry, we can better scale our lessons learned beyond our relatively small islands of immediate peers in the ocean that is embedded processing.

User Stats

Recent Posts - 4
Avg Posts Per Week - 1
Posts Written - 99

Recent Posts

Tying up loose ends

In my last two posts, I mentioned that there has been a change of plans. After this week, I will no longer be EDN’s technical editor for embedded processing. My goal with this post is to share where I was going with the active threads, and to provide a means so that I can contact you when I find a new place to continue discussing the embedded processing space with you. Please email me to let me know if I should try to continue these discussions and how to notify you when I find a new home. In the short term, I have a new website at www.embeddedinsights.com that lists my new contact information.

There are three active threads that are running on this ...Read More

Inflection Points : eight bits to save two bits

This last planned guest post for the inflection point series coincidently overlaps with my latest article about how low 32-bit processors can go. This article would have started up a third series thread, but plans have changed which I will explain shortly in my next post.

In this latest guest post, Andy Gryc, senior product marketing manager at QNX Software Systems, observes that while 8-bit processors are cheaper than 32-bit processors, they are more costly to use than 32-bit processors because engineering time is expensive. Andy looks forward to the inflection point where 8- and 16-bit processors die away once and for all.

Using eight bits to save two bits

Do some inflection points make as much sound as one hand clapping? It seems that way. Why else would so many device manufacturers still use 8- or 16-bit processors, when modern 32- and 64-bit processors blow those parts out of the water?

The answer, of course, is cost. 8-bitters are cheap. Unfortunately, this cost-saving measure comes at a, well, cost — lost productivity.

Engineering time is expensive, and an accurate cost assessment needs to amortize engineering effort over the life of the product. Say you are building a consumer electronics device with a short product life. For every cent you save using an 8-bit processor, you might add a dollar's worth of engineering time to the bill of materials. Your engineers will end up packing and repacking functions, rewriting code ...Read More

Using eight bits to save two bits

The answer, of course, is cost. 8-bitters are cheap. Unfortunately, this cost-saving measure comes at a, well, cost — lost productivity.

Inflection Points : Blurring 8- and 32-bit Microcontrollers

These last two planned guest posts for the inflection point series coincidently overlap with my latest article about how low 32-bit processors can go, so I have delayed posting them so they could more closely coincide with that article. This article would have started up a third series thread, but plans have changed which I will explain shortly in a future post.

In this latest guest post, Pete Jones of Atmel looks at the different sized microcontrollers and how the 8- and 32-bit devices are gobbling up the 16-bit processor space. I wrote about this topic three years ago about ...Read More

Blogs	Recent Posts	Total Posts
How We See Embedded Processing	2	33
Embedded Processing	2	66

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