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8051 Ecosystem: Who are the Major Players, Today?

What is an Ecosystem?
An ecosystem in nature is "An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment." ( Wikipedia , here ). While electronics isn't nature, the concept of ecosystem is useful in orienting yourself as an embedded designer in approaching the 8051. It is useful to think about who is attempting to do what, and how each party is making money (or not). Remember that the purpose of this guide is to help practical commercial designers who are evaluating the 8051, not university students or professors.

The 8051 Ecosystem
Within the 8051 ecosystem, there are the following major actors. We have sections in this Insiders' Guide going into more detail about each one.

• 8051 Chip Companies
• 8051 Tools Companies
• 8051-based Single Board Computers (SBCs)
• 8051 "Intellectual Property"
• 8051 Recommended Open Source, Freeware, Projects, etc.

Your 8051 Design
Again, this guide is for commercial developers. That said, in approaching your 8051-based design you have a number of "build" vs. "buy" decisions to make. In some situations, you will be better off building what you need yourself; in others, you are obviously better of buying these components in the marketplace. The same goes for software or services. Thinking about the ecosystem as a whole might help you in your web searching to identify the correct place to find a company that might be able to help you.

For example, you might want to jump ahead to a completed board and skip the whole problem of board design and integration. In that case, you can use eg3.com as a way to identify 8051 vendors. Simply do a search for "SBC" and "board". A representative example is Allen Systems . You can find out about their 8051-based boards, here . The value proposition is that they have built the board for you, so you can move on to your application.

Or, you might be starting from the microcontroller itself in which case you need to turn first to the chip companies that still manufacture 8051's. Maxim for example. A good way to find out who is active in producing 8051's is to use a distributor like Mouser , and search their catalog for "8051." Silicon Labs , for example, is one of the most active. And finally, you might be looking for tools or software companies that support the 8051. Again, you can use eg3.com or other online databases to view the whole universe of these sorts of products. But it pays to know what you are looking for first, and have a clear idea of the ecosystem as well!

Finally, one of the newer developments in the 8051 is "Intellectual Property." Companies like Evatronix of Poland are servicing this growing market, and FPGA companies like Actel or others are happy to work with you to use their FPGAs and incorporate 8051-IP into them. This trend towards IP is bringing new life to the 8051, making it again the architecture that will "never die."

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