Flash-less, the new fashion trend?
30
Jun
2018
Who would have known that we would see in the same month more flashless devices at extreme ends of the spectrum? From the souped up i.MXRT1060 (600MHz) to the low power BT5 Dialog Semi DA14683, the market seems ready for more non-volatile memory options. Flashless will not solve the world’s problem, but this is an interesting architecture to consider. Microchip on its end showed us another type of architecture with a motor-control dual core processor. So many options to choose from…
The big news was the creation of a new family – SAML1x – based on the Cortex-M23. The Cortex-M23 (Cortex-M0+ like) and its more powerful brother the Cortex-M33 (Cortex-M3-like) are both built on the ARMv8-M architecture that incorporates trusted hardware using the TrustZone technology. They were announced back in October 2016. These are features the IoT market has been looking for. The SAML11 embeds secure elements from the architecture including TrustZone, secure debug, crypto, memory scrambling and secure boot, not found on the SAML10.
Performance-wise, both run at 32MHz and have an active current of 25uA/MHz, about a third less than the Cortex-M0+ based SAML2x. The 24-strong members of the family start at 16/4 kB of Flash/RAM for a 5k price of $1.17 and expand up to 64/16 with USB for $1.47.
Dialog released the DA14682/3 products, upgrading the DA14680 with BT5 and cryptographic accelerators. The DA14683 participates into a larger trend of flash-less MCUs – more with NXP below.
No change.
Microchip created another surpise with the creation of the dsPIC33CH, a dual-core built for motor control and industrial applications. Interestingly the cores run in a master/slave model where the slave can run up to 200MHz vs. 180MHz for the master. 20 products we released from 64+24 / 16+4 Flash/RAM (master+slave) to 128+24 / 16+4, with prices ranging from $2.73 to $3.72 @5k.
No change.
No change.
NXP quietly added the i.MXRT1060 – although no products are found yet. As its siblings, the 1060 is flashless and can run up to 600MHz but it doubles the RAM to 1 MB which is the highest SRAM density with the STM32H7 on the MCU market.
Flash size apart, the i.MXRT (528-600MHz) family is close to the STM32H7xx (400MHz) and the ATSAMV7 (300MHz) as they are all Cortex-M7 based with Ethernet, dual USB (only one for the V71), LCD interfaces and other peripherals.
If you look closely at the price range, the i.MXRT is obviously cheaper than its competitors due to lack of flash mostly. Users looking at the total BOM cost for their application will see that 2MB of quad-SPI flash is only a couple of dollars making the value proposition worth looking at.
There are lots of other factors to take into account depending on your design, including performance analysis (speed, power consumption), cost to get your code flashed, cost to optimize software (location of code and data in RAM/Cache), PCB space constraints and much more. Your actual mileage may vary…
The flash-less area is a segment to watch, especially in the mid-tier to high end.
No significant change.
There were 3 EFR32BG parts (Bluetooth) adding new package/temperature combinations to the existing family
Cypress added a dozen parts to the FM3 family (CY9AFxxxxxG-MNE2).
STM32 had only new temperature/package variants of existing parts.
No significant change.
A quiet month for once?
31
May
2018
It’s been a relatively quiet month with main events centering on new parts at Renesas RX64M and improved RF performance and crypto for Nordic’s nRF52840 multi protocol MCU.
ATTINY8 and 16 got a few parts while the ATSAME/S70 added revision B of the silicon and one more V70 part got the VAO treatment (automotive grade).
No change.
No change.
The DSPIC33EP128GS702 was removed and a few more VAO parts came out for the other DSPIC33EP128 as well as for the PIC12 and PIC16, 9 parts overall. 14 new PIC18F24Q/25Q appeared adding to the 350 existing ones of the same family.
Nordic released a new revision of its nRF52840 using ARM CryptoCell 310 (and its middleware) and an improved performance in TX and RX consumption.
No change.
It looks like the MKS22 is now being removed from the US site, it does appear in the general search but not in the product selector.
Renesas added close to 50 part numbers to its high performance RX64M group running at 120 MHz with Flash memory ranging from 2 to 4MB.
There was a change in nomenclature on the EFM8UB family. The parts now have the package type and pin count as a suffix. The SIM3L157/167 have been retired from the product list as they have been EOL for a while.
Cypress launched the PSoC4 4100PS with 12 products. The 4100PS is based on a Cortex-M0+ with 32/4kB Flash/SRAM and includes capacitive sensing, segment LCD support and operates from a 1.71-5.5V supply.
On the PSoC6, we have lost the PSoC 61, CY8C61xxBZI-Fx4, 7 parts in all.
STM32 had only minor changes.
TI launched the MSP430FR21/23 family with 23 PNs in the value line to target the industrial market with extended temperature range (-40 to 105C). The family has a MSP430 core running at up to 24MHz with up to 32kB of FRAM.
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