Renesas double down on Cortex-M
24
Sep
2020
Renesas gave us a nice surprise this month with an ultra-low power family – the Renesas RE, beating the leaders in their category. The Cortex-M0+ based family leaks less than 1/2 microwatt in standby mode.
Interestingly, the high-end RE01 1500KB group will have the largest Flash memory – 1,536 kB – on the market paired with a Cortex-M0+. We are looking forward to see pricing on an interesting combination.
No change.
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Microchip had close to 300 new products this month all across the board: ATSAME and ATSAMS (Cortex-M), ATTiny (8-bit), AVR64(new)/128 (8-bit), DSPIC33CK, PIC16/24 (16-bit) and PIC32MZ.
No change.
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NXP introduced a HVQFN package for the MKE14/5 family.
There was a nice surprise this months at Renesas.
In the RL78 family, the RL78/G1M got 8 new parts – that wasn’t the surprise…
Renesas is doubling down on its investment in Cortex-M with the RE Family.
Based on the Silicon on Thin Buried Oxide (SOTB™ ) process technology it apparently optimizes current consumption in active, standby and high speed modes at low voltage (1.62V). The EEMBC ULPMark-CP is quite impressive at 705, well ahead of Ambiq Micro APOLLO512-KBR and STMicro’s STM32L412.
The unique RE0 series uses a 64MHz Cortex-M0+ core with 25-35uA/MHz operating current (400-500nA at standby) and embeds a 14-bit ADC, either 256 or 1,536 kB of Flash, security functions (Trusted Secure IP), MIP-LCD parallel interface, and 2D-graphics engine for the high-end parts.
The RE Family targets the markets of hybrid watch, smart home/building, healthcare, smart agriculture, structure monitoring, and trackers.
No price yet announced.
No changes.
Cypress added 7 variants to the existing CY8C6145.
ST unveiled two dozen new products across the board, mostly new pin/package and flash size combinations.
TI was quiet this month.
NordicSemi pushes BLE boundaries with dual Cortex-M33
31
Jul
2020
Nordic is pushing Cortex-M33 in its new “flagship” product, the nRF5340. With a dual core Cortex, it has all the latest bells and whistles of BlueTooth: all AoA and AoD roles in Bluetooth Direction Finding, Bluetooth Long Range and 2 Mbps. This makes yet another dull Covid-19 month a bit more spicy.
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Microchip had another salvo of VAO (automotive grade) parts across the portfolio, from ATSAM to DSPIC33 and PIC16.
We are seeing a burst of activity on the AVR32 with the AVR32DA, a so-called “Functional Safety Ready” MCU with Peripheral Touch Controller (PTC). Don’t get fooled, it looks like it is a 8-bit MCU. Target markets include connected home security, building automation and sensor systems to automotive and industrial automation.
The core runs at 24 MHz and memory is up to 128 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM and 512 bytes of EEPROM, with 12-bit differential ADC, 10-bit DAC, analog comparators and zero cross detectors. The PTC enables capacitive touch interface designs supporting buttons, sliders, wheels, touchpads, smaller touch screens as well as gesture controls. The AVR32DA family supports up to 46 self-capacitance and 529 mutual capacitive touch channels with enhanced noise immunity, water tolerance, touch sensitivity and response time.
The AVR32DA family is available in volume production in 10,000 quantities starting at $0.87.
Nordic unveiled 2 new members of the nRF family, the nRF52805 and the nRF5340.
The nRF52805 covers the lower end of the product portfolio and only supports BLE, it is otherwise based on a similar feature set as the other nRF528xx siblings.
The nRF5340 sits at the opposite end of the spectrum and is labeled the “flagship”, packing 2 Cortex-M33 cores to support a superset of the most prominent nRF52 Series features including Bluetooth® Direction Finding, high-speed SPI, QSPI, USB, up to 105 °C operating temperature.
The application processor is optimized for performance and can be clocked at either 128 or 64 MHz, using voltage-frequency scaling. It has 1 MB Flash, 512 KB RAM, a floating-point unit (FPU), an 8 KB 2-way associative cache and DSP instruction capabilities. The network processor is clocked at 64 MHz and is optimized for low power and efficiency (101 CoreMark/mA). It has 256 KB Flash and 64 KB RAM.
The nRF5340 offers trusted execution, root-of-trust and secure key storage security features. Arm TrustZone provides trusted execution by implementing a division between secure and non-secure Flash, RAM, peripherals and GPIOs. The Arm CryptoCell-312 provides hardware-accelerated cryptography, and together with the key management unit (KMU) peripheral, root-of-trust and secure key storage are implemented.
The nRF5340 supports BLE, with all AoA and AoD roles in Bluetooth Direction Finding, in addition Bluetooth Long Range and 2 Mbps. Mesh protocols like Bluetooth mesh, Thread and Zigbee can be run concurrently with Bluetooth LE, enabling smartphones to provision, commission, configure and control mesh nodes. NFC, ANT, 802.15.4 and 2.4 GHz proprietary protocols are also supported.
No change.
NXP introduced 2 new packages for the i.MX RT600
No significant changes.
No changes.
Cypress added about 10 variant to the existing PSoC61/2, a dual core Cortex-M0+ (system)/ Cortex-M4 (application), with more speed and memory.
ST unveiled 36 new products across the board, mostly new pin/package and flash size combinations.
TI added 46 new part in the C2000 family, 148 in the MSP430 family, mostly variants of existing parts.
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