johnt@tekecs.UUCP (John Theus) (05/29/84)
Phil Ngai of AMD says: > Re the 32R16, I am left with a great "so what?". It sort of looks > like two 16L8s but in the space of 3 or 4 16L8s. And I bet the > price will be $50. Less functionality (half the functions per square > inch of PC board) at 5 times the price. Oh, and it's half as fast too. > A real winner! > (by the way, I could be biased in my opinions about MMI) Well, Phil is certainly very biased in this case. How about AMD's new wonder PAL, the 22V10. Someday AMD might figure out how to produce these things, and maybe at a reasonable price too. The last volume price I saw was $15 each; and this is the part AMD is saying replaces all the other 20 and 24 pin PALs. The only designers that are going to use this part as the general purpose PAL are those whose designs are paid for by the taxpayers. At this price, commercial designers are only going to use this part when there is insufficient real estate to fit 2 20L8s or 20R8s since they cost a lot less money. Phil is probably going to say: "The 22V10 price will come down once production is up to speed." My only comment: "MMI can say the exact same thing." Now, the 22V10 has some very useful functional features as does the 32R16. Phil obviously does not design complex multi-PAL circuits or he would know that a lot of what we pay for in these systems is the interconnections between the PALs. Functions that today require 5 24-pin PALs to implement could possibly fit in a 32R16 because of all those extra pins. Major costs all PAL users face are the programming and archiving costs. Anytime you can reduce the parts count, the savings are not just from the component costs, but all the overhead costs make the savings much greater. I am sure that most hardware designers would appreciate discussions about the merits of different devices and technologies. However, the put-down of a competitor's product is very dangerous. Unless the put-down is bullet-proof, (In the above case, a cap pistol was sufficient.) the author places his company and himself in a very bad light. John Theus tektronix!tekecs!johnt Engineering Computing Systems Tektronix, Inc.
phil@amd70.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (05/31/84)
I told you I might be biased in my last article.
Actually, I have built complicated multi-PAL circuits and do appreciate
the savings inherent in having everything in one package. It is my
personal opinion that the 32R16's savings are cancelled by the large
package size and high cost at this time.
Sorry if there were misunderstandings about what was personal opinion.
Most of what I say on this net is just my opinion. (maybe I should
have one of those stupid "cute" signoffs disclaiming responsibility
for everything including whether the sun will rise in the morning)
--
Phil Ngai (408) 749-5286 {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd70!phil