NXP+FSL = overlap or not overlap?
18
Mar
2015
Freescale+NXP = what a wedding! Although not yet finalized, the deal provides for some interesting synergies in the MCU market. NXP is well positionned with semi-custom MCUs for the mobile industry, while Freescale has been gaining momentum in the standard MCU arena. Although their portfolios overlap, NXP has more exotic products (dual core Cortex-M0+Cortex-M4, or Flash less) that cater to niche markets while Freescale’s portfolio serves more mainstream markets. On the flash side, NXP focuses on 32kB and below or 512kB and above while Freescale is heavier at 64, 128, 256 and 512kB. Their combined portfolio will be equivalent in size to ST’s and will easily dwarf Atmels’ and SLAB’s. NXP has nevertheless planned for $200M growing to $500M in cost savings. We will for sure see some pruning.
There were a couple of notable announcements this month at Atmel. The SAM DA1 – A for Automotive – is a 48MHz qualified for the Automotive environment – AEC-Q100. The interesting bit is the integrated peripheral touch controller (PTC). This opens up a host of applications like touch button, slider, wheel or proximity sensing applications. The SAM DA1 comes with 32 to 64 pins, up to 64KB of Flash, 8KB of SRAM. In all, 15 devices were released.
The V7 family (Cortex-M7-based) got a change in its naming convention where a T suffix was added for Tape and Reel – although the revision section mentions T&R the ordering table shows Tray. In the S70J family, same problem, although the T suffix was not added, but the revision list says so. Confused? We are too.
The SAMD21 got new strength with the addition of 104 new devices, some offering new package combinations others the new RWW FLash memory partitionning.
Finally, a number of SAM3S and SAM4S got their new R suffix (Tape and Reel)
On the price front, the portfolio had limited range, from +3% to -3%.
More cleanup this month with 38 more products on the chopping block, either taken off or obsolete or NRND. At the same time, 12 new products made it out of the oven: the MKL17 and MKL27 families. The complement the existing portfolio but on the low end with flash sizes from 32 to 64kB.
Nothing happened for FSL prices this month.
Ha, when we said that something was cooking at NXP :) Beyond the acquisition of Freescale, there were a couple of Cortex-M0+ product released the LPC1125JBD48/303 and LPC1124JBD48/303. NXP announced the Secured versions of the LPC18 and LPC43 families which seem to be adding an AES block to the current versions – non-S of the same products.
Pricewise, there was no change.
Now, this is Renesas’ turn to be quiet… before the storm? No product change was seen this month.
Renesas experienced very limited price changes.
Well, we got some change for once at SiLabs. The first one is no-news: 183 products now have a T suffix – for Tray? The datasheets don’t seem to have moved. A more subtle and interesting change is the way the website is architected. The EFM32 is taking center stage on the main MCU page and 32-bit MCU pages while the Precision32 family needs another click, and is lost in the middle of the page. Is SiLabs slowly phasing out the Precision product line?
A few price increases on the SiM and LG families.
As always, ST sprinkled their portfolio with a few new parts – 19, but the attention this month is on the STM32L4, a few Cortex-M4F running at 80 MHz with 100ua/MHz of active power consumption. Digital peripherals include USB OTG FS.
The STM32L4 is sampling now with GA in Q2 this year, and a price starting at $3.40/10ku (LQFP64).
ST price changes focused on the STM32F031/51 and STM32F407ZGT7 (-9%) while a few F042 parts enjoyed a 4% increase.
TI continues to remove more parts from the Tiva portfolio, 116 this time. Tiva is now left with 169 products. We’re not sure how many more months this family will be in town. On the MSP430 front, 56 products made it through the gate, the MSP430F672/3/6. They complement an already rich family of close to 300 products.
Large price decreases for MSP430 on F525 parts, -10% to -27%.
ARM wrestling at the top of MCUs
16
Feb
2015
After the top of the line Cortex-M7 announcements of recent months, Renesas is retaliating with the release of its full portfolio of 240MHz-1,056-Coremarks RXv2 parts. With all the bells and whistles – Ethernet, USB HS, Encryption, 4MB Flash, CAN, it is well equipped to fight Atmel, Freescale and ST’s Cortex-M7 devices. Or is it? ARM claims a whooping 5 Coremark/MHz and ST already offers a 200MHz part while Atmel already has 67 300MHz Cortex-M7 ATSAM7.
Cortex-M7 parts seems to lag behind Renesas in Flash integration though with “only” 2MB. Will we see high frequency RXv2 soon at Renesas? The MCUs are moving up market and are starting to encroach into the application processor segment, it will be an interesting year.
After much emotions last month (remember the freshly baked Cortex-M7 SAME7x,S7x and V7x), Atmel just released more parts in the low end SAMD1x family. In all, 11 parts with that same Cortex-M0+ at 48MHz were released. The D10.13 embeds 8kB of Flash and 4kB RAM while the SAMD10.14 bumps up the Flash size to 16kB. The C version has fewer ADC and pins than its D counterpart.
On the price front, the portfolio had only a few minor changes in the ATSAM4 family.
Spring is coming at Freescale and we can already feel some cleanup… The PK (Prototype) devices are almost gone (32 products removed), with the exception of the PK10. On the other end, 45 products appeared, alas, these were mostly R suffixes, i.e. reel packing option. The only exception was the MK22DN512VDC5/(R), a variant of the 50MHz Cortex-M4. FSL web site is a bit short on details, except for the 121 pin count, and the product brief doesn’t mention the DC package…
Nothing happened for FSL prices this month.
Hmm, four months since any product was announced at NXP. Is something new cooking? An M7 beast, or a multi-processor engine that only NXP can create?
Pricewise, there was no change.
Renesas released all the Rx71M described in the roadmap at once, what a feast! See below (source Renesas) for a complete view of the family.
This is heavyduty equipment with at least 2MB of Flash, 240MHz – 1,056 CoreMark.
On the RL78 front, the new RL78/I1D family targeted at the detectors and sensors market was launched with 13 new products. Here is the lineup (source: Renesas).
Renesas experienced very limited price changes.
We are getting beyond desperate about SiLabs Cortex portfolio…
No price change either.
37 products became public this month across the board. Most were variations of existing products. The following families were updated:
- STM32F030 (2)
- STM32F070/71 (6)
- STM32F215 (1)
- STM32F302/3 (20)
- STM32F398 (1)
- STM32F4 (4)
- STM32L1 (3)
ST price changes focused on the STM32F091 and STM32F217 (-6 to -14%) while a few F031/51 and F405/7 parts enjoyed a refreshing +10%.
TI was quiet this month with no move on Tiva beyond the TM4C123GH6ZXR getting in production and only one MSP430 part – XMS430FR6972IPMR – added.
It was very quiet on the price front too.
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