A brand new competitive landscape for 2016
30
Dec
2015
In another twist of the semiconductor board rooms, it is yet unclear where Atmel will land after the Microchip offer. Although counter-intuitive, a consolidated Microchip/Atmel would present a stronger face to the growing threat of NXP/FSL and Renesas.
The NXP/FSL merger is now complete, with all the products under the same banner, let the portfolio optimization begin!
2016 will introduce new company faces and on the product front, new peripherals and wireless integration as we are observing this month. We wish all of our readers a wonderful and exciting new year!
What a quarter for Atmel. After announcing a deal with Dialog Semiconductor, Atmel is now looking at a competitive bid from Microchip. It isn’t the first time Microship has sets its views on Atmel. It ended a bid to acquire Atmel in early 2009, citing a deepening downturn in the semiconductor industry. The shareholders will vote on the Dialog deal in March.
Although Atmel and Microchip MCU portfolios are very similar, Atmel brings a key element to the merger: a strong Cortex-M portfolio would align back Microchip to the current market trends. It is unclear whether its large PIC32 portfolio has garnered enough support in the industry compared to FSL/NXP and ST. But it pales in comparison to the number of Cortex-M parts on the market – well above 5,000 – and the number of partners and tools supporting the Cortex-M architecture. If the merger happens, it will be interesting to follow how the AVR and PIC architectures will evolve as they are both proprietary. We could imagine a strong 8-PIC portfolio with a mid-range AVR and 32-bit ARM families. Exciting developments for sure.Atmel released the ATMega324PB, a sibling to the 16MHz 324PA with subtle changes including more I/Os, a temperature sensor and 105C.
On the ARM front, the SAMD21L lost its revision A silicon to only leave the B revision.
Freescale has been integrated with NXP, with all the products now under the same banner, but different taxonomies and documentations. We are in the process of getting all the data aligned too.
Infineon offered us nice gifts under the tree for Christmas: 3 families were released and are currently sampling.
The XMC1400 is a 48Mhz Cortex-M0 with a math co-processsor and up to 200kB of Flash (31 parts). The XMC4700 (12 parts) and XMC4800 (18 parts) boast a 144 MHz Cortex-M4 with FPU, extended temperature and up to 2MB/352kB of Flash/RAM. The XMC4800 embeds an EtherCat interface and targets real-time Ethernet based applications.
Microchip added close to 100 products this month mostly in the PIC24FJ and PIC16LF families. The new PIC24FJ bring a bigger (512kB or 1MB) flash to the party, as well as a USB for the 128kB Flash variant. The 16LF188x is a 32MHz device with 7 to 56 kB Flash.
Nuvoton had no product change this month.
NXP web site has all the Freescale products now, we are sorting out the changes.
Renesas released the RX130, a cost optimized RX100 family for touch apps with 5V support, in total 20 parts from 8 to 128kB Flash.
The RL78 saw 6 very interesting new products: all support a sub GHz IEEE802.15.4e/g interface for the metering and home markets. You will get 32MHz and 256 to 512 kB Flash in a 9×9 mm HVQFN package.
Silicon Labs added another family to its Bee family: the Laser Bee, a 72MHz 8051 core with a 14-bit 900ksps 20-channel ADC. There are 20 new part numbers ranging from 16 to 64 kB of Flash.
Spansion was quiet this month.
ST released 43 products, most of which were higher temp versions of existing parts. However, the F410 is a 90nm, 100MHz Cortex-M4 optimized for low power. The STM32L041 also appeared on the lower end with Cortex-M0+ and 32 MHz. Other biffier versions included the 071/72/73 with new package or temperature options.
TI released a couple of MSP430 parts, but more interestingly 5 new Delfino parts that are dual C28x cores running at 200 MHz.
The revenge of the nimble
23
Nov
2015
It was interesting to see Spansion/Cypress announce a slew of new exciting products this month. The Cortex M space is getting more crowded by the day. While that density levels through the processor core – everybody has the same – it favors diversity in peripherals, integration with BLE, IEEE 802.15.4 that the IoT badly needs as well as tuning for low power. It is great to see HDMI-CEC, Smart card interfaces, large memory with simpler cores and many more coming to the market. We’re living exciting times.
No changes for AVR, nor for the SAM ARM platform. The merger with Dialog was approved by the DoJ, where no antitrust issues were found. Activist hedge fund Elliot has increased its stake in Dialog and is campaining against the merger.
There was a slight readjustment (-4%) on a number of ATMega families. There a similar pattern for some members of SAM3S, 3X, 4E, 4L, 4N, 4S, D21, E7, G5, S7, L21.
Some of the MK2 family members were phased out in favor of a new silicon revision. In particular, MK21FN1, MK21FX512, MK22FN1, and MK22FX512.
More information has been released on the MKV4 family. The MKV4x family is based on a Cortex-M4 running at 168 MHz with CAN and CRC logic to address the motor control and power conversion segments. 64 to 256kB of Flash are available in LQFP 48, LQFP 64 and LQFP 100 packages.
A few MKWx0Z160 appeared as well. The KW series integrates sub-1GHz and 2.4GHz RF trasceivers with a 48MHz Cortex-M0+ core and 160kB/20kB of Flash/SRAM on a QFN48 or 32 package. The MKW20Z160 has an IEEE802.15.4 interface while the MKZ30Z160 support BTLE only. The MKW40Z160 supports both.
Most of the changes were on the negative side this month with about 20 members of MKV being hit by a 11 to 26% decline (FSL site). 2 exceptions were found: MK22FN512CPB12R +1% and MKL03Z8VFG4R +2%.
Infineon was quiet this month.
Prices were generally down in the 5 to 4% range, mostly on XMC1.
Microchip released 58 new part numbers, 8 dsPIC33EP with a new package: PQF, No Lead Package – (28-pin) 4x4x0.6 mm body (UQFN).
There is also a new family – the PIC16F1885x using MCHP’s eXtreme Low power (XLP). The family will feature the CRC/SCAN, HLT and Windowed WDT to support customers looking to add safety to their application. The family includes up to 56kB Flash, and a 10-bit ADC.
The PIC16LF1566 is also a new comer with 8MIPS, 14kB of Flash, 28 pins and additional features for capacitive sensing in touch applications.
Limited price changes this month.
Nuvoton had no product change this month.
Pricewise, there was no significant change.
NXP was very quiet this month on the product front.
Pricewise, there was a general 4% decline across the board.
Renesas released the RL78/15 for the automotive market with over 30 part numbers. The RL78 core runs at 24MHz at up to 125C. With packages from 48 to 144-pin, Flash from 128 to 512 kB, and advanced IPs for LIN and 2 channels of CAN communication and IEBus, these products can support a broad range of cost sensitive automotive applications like DC- &BLDC motor control, HVAC, lighting and other body ECUs.
There was no price change.
Silicon Labs added a new family to its busy bee segment, the EFM8BB3, a 50 MHz C51 core that adds more Flash, 4 configuration logic units, a CRC and an AEC-Q100 qualification to the BB2. There are 12 new part numbers ranging from 16 to 64 kB of Flash.
Slight negative price adjustments on EFM32HG322.
Spansion announced 2 new families as we were going to press. In the high end FM4 family, the S6E2G and S6E2H embed CAN-FD, Ethernet, and HW accelerated encryption with up to 1MB/192kB (S6E2G- 180MHz) and 512kB/64kB (S6E2H-160MHz) of Flash/SRAM. Designed for industrial automation and metering applications, the S6E2G exposes 153 GPIOs while the S6E2H supports 100 GPIOsand focuses on motor control and home appliance applications.
The low end Cortex-M0+ FM0 shows the highest density of Flash in its category at up to 560kB! The second distant at 256kB being the Atmel SAMD2x/SAMC2x/SAML2x, FSL MKL/MKM and the NXP LPC11x68.
Prices were usually 5 to 4% down.
ST released this month the STM32F469, essentially a STM32F479 with no crypto accelerator. There was also ample movement on the STM32L (low power) segment. ST is beefing up the low end with the STM32L031 (32kB Flash) and up to the STM32L083 (192kB Flash, touch and segment LCD).
STM32F4 had a price decline from -10% to -17% both at disty and at ST, and a couple of other STM32F1,2 and 3 were down below 10% as well. STM8 were more mixed with some positive notes.
TI released new variations of the MSP430FR2xx, the MSP430FR24, MSP430FR25, and MSP430FR26. Each adds a 32×32 multipler and more memory (up to 15.5kB FRAM).
TI had a few price changes on the F28, about a dozen parts declined mildly between -1 and -6%.
The MSP430 had positive price changes mostly the MSP430F67 between 21 and 76%!
Tiva was down across the board 3%.
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