| ??? 03/31/08 21:17 Read: times |
#152795 - trade in... Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Craig Steiner said:
It turns out the fingerprint scanner was essentially sending raw scan lines as the finger moves across the scanner and their software library was interpreting those scan lines in real-time in something like an 8k buffer. They claimed they needed 100 MIPS so the software could keep up with the incoming data. Then, this sounds like a typical example where speed can be traded in for memory (and maybe a bit of additional logic). 8k of RAM is today worth nil, and 200-300 scanlines worth is still rather cheap (if it does not need to be desperately integrated on a chip, i.e. if it does not need to be supercheap or superslim). I also see no point for realtime processing - is it likely that a crowd of people would need to be scanned finger-after-finger with no pause in between? I don't say it's not worth to go for whatever processing power is available, and I don't say I know all the variables that go into that balancing act an engineer and manager has to do so often; I just want to say it doesn't sound as something completely out of scope of a '51. And, many of the participants here insert something, something often underestimated, into that equation, in favour of '51 - the positive emotions towards it... ;-) JW |
