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Author:
Andreas Schwarz
(andreas)
(Admin)
Posted on:
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Atmel has announced a new controller family called AT91SAM3U based on the ARM Cortex-M3. If you have been following the development of the ARM market this was only a matter of time, since the big competitors NXP and TI (with its recent aquisition of Luminary) are already shipping Cortex-M3 based controllers. Unlike them however, Atmel seems to be targeting only the higher end of Cortex-M3 applications, which is also not too surprising considering their strong position in the 8 bit market with the AVR (and AVR XMEGA) family.
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Even if bad financial sta Atmel apparently trying to consolidate their position on lane ARM cortex Mx taking account that TI will offer its products to market based on the ARM Mx cortex in the fall. TI has a set of powerful peripherals (Het, high speed ADC, DAC, DMA) in conjunction with the core performance ARM cortex M3 could dominate the market ARM course if the price will be sufficiently attractive. The fight is on the ARM will appear between TI, Atmel, ST, NXP and the price will be a decisive factor. Automotive market (especially the engine) and it will probably offer new products based on ARM cortex M3 market is now mainly dominated by family Infineon (Tricore TC17xx family) and Freescale (MPC55XX family) on European respecitv American segment. Advances in nano manufacturing(90nm currently used but 40nm for near future) will enhance the performance in frequency and power consumption which brings all those passionate for this segment of real satisfaction and correlated with stiff competition between producers menionati prices will lead to very good (see AMD vs Intel).
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shiramoo wrote: > Even if bad financial sta Atmel apparently trying to consolidate their > position on lane ARM cortex Mx taking account that TI will offer its > products to market based on the ARM Mx cortex in the fall. TI has a set > of powerful peripherals (Het, high speed ADC, DAC, DMA) in conjunction > with the core performance ARM cortex M3 could dominate the market ARM > course if the price will be sufficiently attractive. While I agree with you in every aspect so far, Cortex-M3 devices that include TI mixed signal IP will show up eventually and fall might be correct as well but my guess would be rather fall of 2010. Benn in that industry on the manufacturers side for a long time and in the short term, ther devices will be those developed by Luminary and most likely even continued to be manufactured at TSMC for quite a while. The fight is on the > ARM will appear between TI, Atmel, ST, NXP and the price will be a > decisive factor. Got that one right but the other factor is going to be unique features. So far Atmel is the only one to promote USB2.0 HS on a Cortex-M3. Automotive market (especially the engine) and it will > probably offer new products based on ARM cortex M3 market is now mainly > dominated by family Infineon (Tricore TC17xx family) and Freescale > (MPC55XX family) on European respecitv American segment. My best guess is, here you are completely out of touch. The domination in the power train by Freescale PPC and Infineon TriCore is definitely correct but they can not be challenged by anything Cortex-M at all. The CPUs of the TriCore and the PPC are MUCH more powerful. However, there could be some interesting lineup with the Cortex-R4 and the above mentioned architectures. In engine management many things are about real-time performance and timer capabilities. Both Freescale and Infineon have "timer-monsters" implemented in their devices and they both have real-time coprocessors tightly coupled to the main CPU. In other words, the PPC and TriCore play in a different league, so to say the Champions league for power train while the Cortex-M3 is nowhere close in processing power for that application. Having written all this, the Cortex-M has a much brighter outlook to be THE standard entry 32-bit architecture than any other architecture on the market right now. That is why my focus is on Cortex-M as well, just not for higher end automotive. Best regards, Robert http://mcu-related.com/architectures/35-cortex-m3.html
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Much respect for your comments relevant and respect a good connoisseur of the family and not only ARM. I want to make a statement clarificatoare the possible penetration of ARM cortex M3 in automotive (engine): Will not compete in any kind of powerful cores and Infineon cream (as you well marked) but may enter in the segment with engines less pretensions replacing a good price the legendary C167 that is still present on the Renault and Ford cars and could be easily surpass by ARM speed and peripherals. A cortex M3 TI made with 20 channels Het, 16ch on 10bit ADC, DMA, 32KB RAM, 512MB flash, two units CAN, SPI, ASC can successfully cope with the engines of claims and average to below average not alone gear box. Infineon and Freescale are trying to reduce costs through micro families less endowed (TC1734, Montecarlo) along with monsters as the TC1797 and Mamba engine to catch and more modest engine. I can say that the legendary S12 (Star from Freescale) 16 bit and it is still used engine (max 2 cyl) and may leave room for more cheap 32bit. I admit I am not a very good connoisseur of ARM using for hobby now PIC24H (due to good price/performance) but for next year for sure I will happly go to 32bit core, ARM Cortex M3 or MIPS depending on price , periferial and tools available. All the best from Shiramoo
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The ARM Cortex-M3 is applied to the fields which require high performance but low cost. Before Atmel released its AT91SAMSU Cortex-M3 controller, ST, NXP and TI has already launched their cortex-m3 based processors. But different processors produced by different manufacturers have differences, take the frequency for example, nxp lpc1700 is up to 100MHz, ST STM32F103ZE is 72MHz and Atmel AT91SAM3U is 96MHz. Meanwhile, they incorporate various peripherals, although most of them are the same. Before you choose these processors for your project, you shall evaluate their functions, you can make your own PCB, write a simple program to test its functions respectively, in this way it would be good for a beginner to get started with embedded development, but for an experienced engineer, it would be too time-consuming , so he will buy an evaluation board from the market to test the functions of the processors. I bought an AT91SAM3U Cortex-M3 Board last year and test its functions, I think this Atmel Cortex-M3 Based controller is reliable, high performance but low power consumption. Best regards, Daniel http://www.embedinfo.com/en
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