Parallax Propeller Chip Temperature Test

[ScriptSlinger]

Good work, guys - keep it up!

[jason4themoney]

Could I use this to boost my PC? lol

[jpmorgan187]

did parallax design the propeller processor? or is there some other company behind it? eg, I believe the used microchip's PIC processor for the basic stamps.

[SolutionByEvolution]

@jpmorgan187 Parallax designed the Propeller in its entirety which included creating the standard cells, blocks and layout from scratch.

[bobjoe212x]

wow... those are some really extreme temps...

i wonder does this thing like instantly warm\freeze a room when testing high heat?

[azayles]

I wouldn't imagine so 'cause of the weird aspect ratio that'd give you. You can get colour LCD or OLED screens though that'll display video from a Propeller or even a Basic Stamp.

[Primiscomputers]

whats funny (and it takes a geek to realize this) is that when they opened the chamber, the temperature cooled slightly enough that the oscillator shifted back to normal color burst tolerance, because if you look, the propeller was displaying color when they zoomed out.

[soshimo]

@Primiscomputers

I've seen overclocked AVRs behave erratically just as you pointed out. There was a youtube video for awhile showing an AVR clocked at the color burst frequency. The guy would just touch the chip and it would throw off the oscillations. Thankfully AVR came out with the 644P which can be clocked at the color burst frequency.

[classicmacintosh]

This is all good and fancy but please give me one real world example in which you would need to run the device so hot.....

[ToothBloodNail]

a flight to mercury :P

[SolutionByEvolution]

I think they are doing margin testing, to do this you need to find where the chip fails. Testing strictly to specification and not beyond is just bad engineering and can potentially land designers in a world of hurt if a circuit block on the IC has some design/process marginality. All of this is true even for PCBs, mechanical systems and so on.

[soshimo]

Milspecs demand such tolerance testing. Also, if you plan on making this a device for industrial applications then this type of tolerance testing is required I honestly don't think they bet the farm on this one chip hoping that they could sustain themselves with hobbyists. I'm sure they are looking for other applications and this is just the due diligence in that endeavor.

[cyborgtroy]

I feel safe in knowing that there is no chance of a dangerous equipment malfunction prior to my victory candescence.

[nonrandomusername]

Where are the interrupts?

[zantrua]

there are no interrupts, it has 8 processors, so the idea is that if you need to launch a interrupt, you just put it in its own processor instead.

[smith760123]

Great. A toy chip that can run when it is pretty hot. A lot of the 7400 series can do that too ...

[andygaras]

how many 74xx would it take to do what the propeller is doing?

[AMiGR667]

Last time I checked the 74xx series has no embedded processors, let alone 8-core ones. So that's a rather pointless comment, don't you think?

[cumesoftware]

@AMiGR667 Processors are made using logic gates, case you don't know. The 74xx family doesn't have any processors, but sure it has logic gates. So andygaras question is legit.

[AMiGR667]

@cumesoftware

My reply was quite cocky and uncalled for, I must have been in a bad mood or something, his comment was blatantly a joke... It was a good two years ago, hard to remember... I was just pointing out that the 74xx series logic handling such an extreme temperature range would be far less impressive than this.

[cumesoftware]

@AMiGR667 Yes indeed! I agree on that. 180ºC, even for this kind of processor, is really extreme. I was quite impressed. Parallax really committed to design this from the ground up. It is an excellent and new kind of architecture, as the Z80 was for its time.

[markduff]

Do some research before you spout. The Prop chip has way more features.

[HLSDK]

LO U R NGINEER!!!!1 YAY2U!

[barbhella]

toy chip... haha damn retard.

[benjaminshinobi]

lol so the parallax can run even if you launched it into the sun? JK interesting stuff, especially the color burst part.

[stigh4]

wow, so interesting.

[Msdos4]

So the crystal isn't permanently damaged by the heat? The picture started getting color again when you opened the door.

[kubarebo]

No, most mechanical or electromechanical oscillators double as fairly good, if a tad nonlinear, temperature sensors. The crystal's frequency is a function of temperature, that's all. I've ran a crystal (not an oscillator) up to 250C once and while there was a slight (~80ppm) permanent frequency shift after room temp to 250C and back cycle, there was no other damage, and Q remained within 5% of original.

[Membrane556]

You can bake a pizza in there with it also thats getting pretty close to melting the solder if it's that low temp stuff they sometimes use with SMTs.

[OghamTheBold]

TIP: Bake some muffins while your at it

[WDRI]

Way to go parallax ...QuattroRS4