Theme fund: NGI Zero Core
Start: 2023-12
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f8
Modern 8-bit instruction set
Among microcontrollers (µC), 8/16-bit µC are an important part of the embedded systems ecosystem since they tend to have substantially lower resource and energy costs than the larger, more powerful 32-bit and 64-bit µC.
However, existing 8/16-bit µC architectures tend to be either somewhat inefficient (e.g. MCS-51) or single-vendor (e.g. STM8, Rabbit). The latter are at a high risk of being discontinued when a vendor pulls out of the 8/16-bit market, and this has been announced recently for the STM8 and Rabbit architectures. One possible solution is to develop an efficient free architecture for 8/16-bit µC. The f8 is such an approach. It is based upon extensive experience from the large number of 8/16-bit architectures supported by the free Small Device C compiler (SDCC). Like RISC-V did for 32/64-bit architectures, f8 is based on lessons learned from the strengths and weaknesses of existing 8/16-bit architectures.
- The project's own website:https://sdcc.sourceforge.net/
This project was funded through theNGI0 Core Fund, a fund established byNLnet with financial support from the European Commission'sNext Generation Internet programme, under the aegis ofDG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No101092990.
