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).
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
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
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