Is it important if XMOS is a MCU or something else?

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rubberneck
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Post by rubberneck »

Where I work none of our customers including hobbyists care about marketing or positioning.
They care about technology no?


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Folknology
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Post by Folknology »

Where I work none of our customers including hobbyists care about marketing or positioning.
They care about technology no?
Not really quite sure how to respond, are you suggesting that we shouldn't care about positioning?
Or are you just saying that you do not care about it?

regards
Al
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Folknology
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Post by Folknology »

For the foreseeable future my future is entangled one way or another with Xmos's future, thats is a good thing, however its clear that Xmos's position moving forward changes that future. Therefore how Xmos positions its current and future products will likely have a significant effect on that part of my future. Hence I do very much care about Xmos's product positioning having invested both a great deal of time and money into that joint perceived future.

Thus myself and others partaking in this thread (with the exception of rubberneck) do have a vested interest in Xmos's product positioning. Further this thread has highlighted key features that differentiate the XS1 from other products out there. Like Interactive_Matter I also have similar conversation with other communities and commercial interests regarding what XS1 is and does, to them such explanations can help clarify the XS1 over and above its newly adopted MCU positioning to the point where they actually get it and see the real value of it. Left as it is however they would never reach such a conclusion, that is why this thread is very relevant now and for the future, its significant for current and future development/opportunities.

I also like Johnathan would be interested in Xmos feedback in this thread

regards
Al
rubberneck
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Post by rubberneck »

You invest time and money, you should be concerned about technology and architecture?
Marketing positioning is only politics and bla bla no?
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Folknology
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Post by Folknology »

If you invest time and money you should be concerned about all of factors including important ones like will Xmos still be around in a few years..
Marketing positioning is only politics and bla bla no?
This is clearly a naive statement and just amplifies bad marketing as well as stereotyping engineers

And given you laissez faire attitude to positioning and marketing I am surprised at your attention to this thread

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Al
rubberneck
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Post by rubberneck »

Folknology wrote:If you invest time and money you should be concerned about all of factors including important ones like will Xmos still be around in a few years..
Marketing positioning is only politics and bla bla no?
This is clearly a naive statement and just amplifies bad marketing as well as stereotyping engineers

And given you laissez faire attitude to positioning and marketing I am surprised at your attention to this thread

regards
Al
O!

I prefer be a naive engineer then a businessman who thinks that supplier positioning threatens his business rather then supplier technology
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Folknology
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Post by Folknology »

Your preference has been duly noted, thank you, perhaps we can get back to the thread now.

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Al
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Folknology
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Post by Folknology »

Interactive_Matter there are also a number of limiting factors in the XS1 vs MCU position to be considered during the design phase

Compared to and competing with existing MCUs, XS1 selection can be at a disadvantage because :

1) The majority of shipping MCUs contain on board rewritable ROMs for code either EEprom or Flash. The XS1 currently has only a limited 8K OTP (write once). This often means adding an external flash/eeprom part to the BOM.

2) Because of above there is a 2nd side effect, code and static storage in flash/eeprom is not memory mapped, thus it must be copied to the SRAM at runtime reducing the memory available for actual processing. A good example of this is when running large code libraries such as xTCP/IP which leave very little left for your actual application.

3) Although many MCUs come standard with ADC and or DAC not such option is available with XS1, this again leads to an external chip addition and increased BOM as well as adding to layout complexity.

4) XS1 unlike most MCUs requires dual supply regulation 3.3v for IO and 1v for the core, this adds complexity and BOM count as well as layout.

5) All of the above increase cost in parts, layout and testing putting XS1 at a competitive disadvantage from the out.

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Al
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jonathan
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Post by jonathan »

All customers have an interest in a company's positioning. It's normal. If you don't care you may find yourself in a lot of trouble. Imagine XMOS went out of business for whatever reason tomorrow and you could no longer buy the chips. One of the main reasons young companies fail is poor marketing. If you want to just be an engineer and ignore this, that's fine, but make sure you have someone who understands this working with you.

Rubberneck: your reference to the Parallax forums/community is dubious. The community there does care about "marketing" - certainly market position. A great example of this is the bickering that went on when XMOS came on the scene and Leon started mentioning it in the Parallax forums.

Another example is here:

https://www.xcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1105

There are people from very big companies also very interested in "positioning" and "roadmap" - public statements of intent and direction.

Positioning is a mechanism of signalling to both current and future customers who you are and what you want to be. By positioning itself as a microcontroller, XMOS positions itself as competing in one of the toughest electronics markets in existence - one where there is already true competition and where the incumbents understand their market incredibly well.

At present, nothing in the XMOS product family looks remotely like a microcontroller - the XMOS chips are generally:

- Substantially more expensive
- Substantially more powerful in processing capability
- Substantially less powerful in peripherals (on-board AD/DA + integrated peripherals)
- As far as I can tell, used in designs in a very different way

In my view, there are only two good reasons for XMOS to position itself as a microcontroller company given the above:

1) Because they are already taking substantial design-wins off customers previously using (only) microcontrollers (note... NOT customers previously using a combination of microcontroller + DSP or microcontroller + FPGA - these are different markets where the MAIN part is not the microcontroller, and so positioning XMOS as a microcontroller will make sure it is in their blind spot).

2) Because XMOS has a long-term intention to compete hard in this market with future (coming soon) devices or packages - and this is a way of pre-marketing such devices. There is no doubt that the XMOS XS1 architecture, if implemented in a different way, could be brilliant in this market, but this would require a significant number of new packages and quite a bit of thought to solve the bill of materials problems Folknology has highlighted.

There are two or three other, bad, reasons for positioning the chips as microcontrollers, including desperation or simply poor understanding of the market or the architecture.

At present, the chips don't stack up well point by point against microcontrollers. This is a generalisation, but people tend to select microcontrollers on the basis of "cheapest that will just do the job" - hence why there's such variety of combinations of peripherals. XMOS chips will never be the "cheapest that will just do the job" - not in terms of unit cost or bill of materials cost. Selling into the DSP or FPGA space with arguments such as "fast time to market" and "design re-use" can work - but selling into the microcontroller space - well, XMOS, have you had any success?

I don't like the positioning because it does not come with an explanation and a roadmap - a statement of vision. There are no press releases to accompany it, no formal statements. There isn't even a public product roadmap for either new silicon, new packages or even new boards. It doesn't feel like a piece of positioning XMOS is proud of - or it should be shouting it from the rooftops.

I have no doubt XMOS could be successful in the MCU space, but not today.
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jonathan
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Post by jonathan »

Rubberneck - didn't take too long to find: here's a 19-page thread on the Parallax forums talking about positioning:

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.p ... r-s-future

Admittedly it gets a little convoluted and drifts at times, but still...

Do you read the Propeller forums? What's your handle there?
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