Semiconductor Products Insight

Semiconductor Products Insight

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RIP STM8

01

Mar

2023

ST continues its fireworks in 2023 with the retirement of virtually all the STM8 portfolio. It is holding its promise:
“your next 8-bit MCU is a 32-bit MCU, the STM32C0”. The cleanup did not stop there with the NRND of the STM32L1xx families. SiLabs did not sit still either on the wireless side with the announcement of the heavy duty EFR32FG25, a sub-GHz swiss army knife for smart metering, lighting, city and building automation.


Infineon
There were new CY8C4149 parts in the Cortex-M0+ based PSoC 4100S Max family.
Microchip
This month, Microchip added 35 parts of which 20 where of the PIC32CX family. Microchip is growing its small existing set of Cortex-M based parts. It is a 120 MHz Cortex-M4 mid range family with ethernet and CAN-FD.
Nordic
No change.
Nuvoton
Nuvoton launched the M0A2x series. Both M0A21/23 use a 48 MHz Cortex-M0 core with -40/+125C temperature range, 2.4V ~ 5.5V operating voltage and LIN interface for robust communication. They target robust and high operating temperature applications, such as 24 GHz mmWave radar, car lighting, electric window lifter, and power seat and intelligent power supply.
The MA023 adds a CAN 2.0B interface and supports a larger Flash size.
NXP
No change.
Renesas
The RA family had a handfull of new suffix. In the RL78 family, we saw for the first time the RL78/G22, focused on low power (37.5µA/MHz) and touch. It uses a 32 MHz RL78 core, with a variety of 16-48-pin packages and 32-64 KB of flash memory. The RX had 200 variants of existing parts.

SiliconLabs
SiLabs launched the EFR32FG25 wireless SoCs, with long range, Sub-GHz wireless connectivity for smart metering, lighting, city and building automation. The inclusion of multi-rate OFDM, FSK, and OPSK modulation schemes allows for data rates up to 3.6 Mbps while keeping immunity to 2.4 GHz interference. The large memory footprint and increased IO count allows for design consolidation and when combined with Secure Vault can provide higher level system security. 10 products were unveiled with a 97.5 MHz Cortex-M33 and up to 1920kB of Flash and 512 kB of RAM.
ST Microelectronics
ST continues its massive portfolio overhaul with the retirement (NRND) of virtually all of its STM8 portfolio. This is the result of the STM32C0 announcement last month, their lowest cost 32 MCU that cannibalized the STM8. This is a bold move that allows customers to upgrade easily to a slew of options in the STM32 portfolio.
ST did not stop there and is now cleaning up its STM32 portfolio with the retirement of another family, the Cortex-M3 STM32L1xx. There was too much overlap with the STM32L0 (Cortex-M0+) with little benefit of the Cortex-M3.
Texas Instruments
No significant change to the TI portfolio this month.
Newsletter |

The low cost MCU war rages on

31

Jan

2023

ST illuminates Januray with its lowest cost Cortex-M0+ family, the STM32C0, ready to attack the 8-bit MCU market. Renesas did not want to be outdone and released the RL78/G15, a 16-bit MCU targetting the same segment. In the meantime, Microchip unveiled another Cortex-M4 based MCU, well just one of its 14,000 MCU part numbers of which over half are 8-bit MCUs. The competition is heating up there…


Infineon
No change this month.
Microchip
This month, Microchip added close to 200 variants of existing parts in the DSPIC33C, PIC16F and PIC18F families.
There was one addition that caught our attention, the EEC1727 that is sampling now.
The EEC1727 is designed for security and storage enclosure platforms and based on a Cortex-M4F with 416kB of RAM. The secure bootloader authenticates and optionally decrypts the SPI Flash OEM boot image using the AES256, ECDSA, SHA-512 cryptographic hardware accelerators. The EEC1727 is designed to be incorporated into low power PC architecture designs and supports ACPI sleep states (S0-S5). Price is a $5.35/1k.

Nordic
No change.
Nuvoton
No change.
NXP
NXP finally released the documentation for the i.MXRT500 at the lower end of the CrossOver MCU portfolio of MCUs.
The i.MX RT500 is a family of dual-Cortex-M33 cores combined with a Cadence® Xtensa® Fusion F1 Audio DSP. The Cortex-M33 includes two hardware coprocessors providing enhanced performance for an array of complex algorithms along with a 2D Vector GPU with LCD Interface and MIPI DSI PHY. The device has up to 5 MB SRAM, two FlexSPIs (Octal/Quad SPI Interfaces) each with 32 KB cache, one with dynamic decryption, high-speed USB device/host + PHY, 12-bit 1 MS/s ADC, Analog Comparator, Audio subsystems supporting up to 8 DMIC channels, 2D GPU and LCD Controller with MIPI DSI PHY, SDIO/eMMC, FlexIO, AES/SHA/Crypto M33 coprocessor and PUF key generation.
Renesas
Renesas released 43 and 181 new variants respectively in the RA and RX families and over 400 in the RL78 family, including the new RL78/G15 family with 48 part numbers.
The RL78/G15 is a 16 MHz GP MCU with the smallest 8-pin package in the RL78 Family, with Flash memory of 4 to 8 kB and 1kB of RAM. It is compatible with the existing RL78 Family and can be used in a wide range of applications, from home appliances and consumer electronics to industrial equipment.
SiliconLabs
No significant change.
ST Microelectronics
After a year of calm, ST woke up after the turn of the year by announcing its lowest cost Cortex-M0+ family, the STM32C0.
The tag line tells it all: Your next 8-bit MCU is a 32-bit. It’s called STM32C0!
The C0 runs at 48MHz, and provides 4 combinations of Flash/RAM (16/6, 16/12, 32/6, 32/12) across 9 packages from 8-pin SON to a 48-pin LQFP/UFQFPN. All include 2 UARTs, a 12-bit ADC, DMA and timers. Prices range from $0.43 to $0.93/10k, indeed getting into the realm of the 8-bits MCUs.
Texas Instruments
No change to the TI portfolio this month.
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