NXP did it again, SiLabs moving
17
Nov
2014
With ARM stealing the show prior to Electronica, there were only a few crumbs left there to see.
NXP who was not part of the M7 tidal wave last month made its own fireworks by releasing a new dual Cortex-M0+/Cortex-M4 solution. This is a repeat of another dual core family, the LPC43
And yes, SiliconLabs has finally changed its portfolio! Well, check it out below, and don’t blow a gasket just yet…
After the nice announcement of the partnership on the Cortex-M7 architecture, things have cooled off a bit. Jacko Wilbrink (Senior Product Marketing Director for Cortex A and M7 products)) , has confirmed their M7 is out of the fab with one customer using it while another batch will follow in Q1-15.
There were a few new products, but don’t get excited too fast, these were just R (reel) or MRL (Marketing Revision Level) B variants of existing products.
ATSAM4S16CA-CFNR, ATSAM4S8BA-ANR, ATSAM4S8CA-ANR, ATSAMG53G19B-UUT, ATSAMG53G19B-AU
On the price front, the portfolio experienced a few changes summarized here:
- SAM3N4: positive
- SAM3S1: positive
- SAM3U: positive
- SAM3X: positive
- SAMD20G18: positive
Same cool off period at FSL after the M7 release last month, but a few products were nevertheless silently released. Most were new packages of existing die, with an interesting WLCSP 142 pins.
- MK22FN256VMP12: MAPBGA 64
- MK22FN512VMP12: MAPBGA 64
- MK24FN1M0CAJ12R: WLCSP 142
- MK60DN256VMC10: MAPBGA 100
- MK64FN1M0CAJ12R: WLCSP 142
The motor control MKV has been beefed up with new combinations of package and frequency.
- MKV30F128VFM10
- MKV30F128VLH10
- MKV30F64VFM10
- MKV30F64VLH10
- MKV31F256VLH12
- MKV31F512VLH12
On the price side at the FSL web site, the MKW21D256/512VHA5 got a price decrease of ~ 15% while the MKW22D512VHA5 dropped by over 20%. The MKW01Z128CHN got a 13% price increase.
While NXP did not display any price changes, it announced at Electronica the new LPC54100 family based on a Cortex-M4 core augmented by a Cortex-M0+ on some versions of the family members.
NXP claims a 20% improvement of power consumption compared to a single core solution which will be very difficult to verify.
Here is a run down of the main features:
- Dual-core M4+M0+ (54101) or Single core M4 (54102) 100 MHz
- 512/256 kB Flash
- 3 uA power down with RAM retention
- Cortex-M0+ (55 uA/MHz)
- Cortex-M4F (100 uA/MHz)
- ADC 12 chan, 12 bits
- -40 to +105C
- 1.62 to 3.6 V
- WLCSP49 (3.28 x 3.28 mm), LQFP64 (10 x 10 mm)
8 Devices were released:
- LPC54101 with 512 or 256 kB Flash and LQFP64 or WLCSP49
- LPC54102 with 512 or 256 kB Flash and LQFP64 or WLCSP49
Renesas released 18 parts in the Smart Analog RL78 MCU family RL78/G1E.
These are 32MHz MCU with built-in analog front-end (AFE) for sensor applications. The AFE includes amplifiers, filters, A/D and D/A converters, a temperature sensor.
In the RX200, 9 new products were also released, they are mostly 105C max temperature versions of existing devices.
Renesas experienced no price change.
SiLabs has started to change its product nomenclature for its Leopard Gecko family. The original part numbering was:
EFM32LG230F128-QFN64, now morphing into EFM32LG230F128G-E-QFN64.
60 products morphed so far in the LG family and 3 new ones were added (the LG360 family).
In the WG (Wonder Gecko) family, 3 new products were introduced, the same WG360 sub-family as for the LG. In both cases, this is a CSP 81 variant.
No other changes observed.
On the price front there were substantial price changes on the F105 sub-family with price decreases of 50%. The F207VCT7 experienced the same fate while the F407ZET7 got a 36% price decrease.
The only parts with a noticeable price increase (~ +5%) were the F051C8T7 and the F217IG.
16 new parts appeared on the STM web site, and counting out the TR versions of existing part numbers, we are left with mostly UFBGA 169 versions of existing parts
- STM32F427AGH6, STM32F427AIH6, STM32F427AIH6U: UFBGA 169 package
- STM32F429AGH6, STM32F429AIH6: UFBGA 169 package
- STM32F437AIH6: UFBGA 169 package
- STM32F439AIH6: UFBGA 169 package
- STM32L062K8U6: UFQFPN 32 version
- STM32L151CBT6D, STM32L151CBU6D, STM32L151RBT6D: new silicon revision
TI released new FRAM versions of its popular MSP430 architecture. The FR2032 and FR413 saw additional FRAM and RAM configurations.
There were no changes for Tiva and no price changes either.
October MCU update: Cortex-M7 big bang, ST jumps the gun, who else is in?
16
Oct
2014
ARM made a big splash at their Tech Con earlier this month with the announcement of the Cortex-M7. ARM has rounded up some big names in the MCU market: Atmel, Freescale and ST have all licensed the core, with a few more unannounced ones.
Interestingly, ST has jumped the gun and released the first Cortex-M7 based family, the STM32F7. The first STM32F7 silicon was demonstrated at the ARM Tech Con. Atmel and Freescale are not far behind, and we should see the release of a slew of new Cortex-M7 based products in the coming months
With ARM spilling the Cortex-M7 beans and ST showing silicon at ARM tech con, Atmel has been compelled to accelerate the PR millbefore the planned announcement at Electronica as we wrote last month. The release gave some good insight into the soon-to-be-named family. SAM7 is already taken by legacy ARM7-based products.Interestingly, the new family belongs to the team that owns the application processors based on the Cortex-A. It suggests that the target applications for the Cortex-M7 overlap to a larger degree with the low end of the Cortex-A target markets.
The portfolio will come in 3 flavors: general purpose, connectivity and automotive-qualified.
The overall specs disclosed where aggressive with a frequency of up to 300MHz for the first devices and a generous 384 kB of RAM for 2MB of Flash, stock USB HS OTG and HS PHY, with Ethernet for the connectivity flavor.
Aside, from that big bang, Atmel released 65 new SAMD20 products, most of them being higher temperature versions of existing products and 5 with new UFBGA packages.
Atmel had minor price updates, around +/-2%.
Freescale was also part of the big bang Cortex-M7 annoucement, but kept quiet on their plan for samples and portfolio.
At the same time, they quietly published 37 new products. There was a brand new family, the KLx7 split roughly in half with (KL27) or without (KL17) USB Device FS. The KLx7 family focuses on a 48MHz Cortex-M0+, with 128-256 kB Flash.
In this new release was a unique part: the MK24FN256VDC12. Details are still a bit sketchy but if it holds true, it would be the first Kinetis to have the same amount of RAM and Flash – 256kB. In the Cortex-M world, ST was the only one with such parts, namely a couple of STM32F334 and STM32F105.
Finally, the MKL3 family was beefed up with 5 new devices. These are 48 MHz Cortex-M0+ parts with LCD support and no USB. The KL4 adds USB to the KL3 and welcomed 5 new parts as well.
No price change at FSL.
NXP refreshed its lineup with a new LPC82x family, a 30 MHz Cortex-M0+ with 16 and 32 kB Flash options, one ADC, one comparator, 3 USART and 2 SPIs. It also added a low-end LPC11E35 with 64kB of Flash. These are single 3.3V supply with limited interfaces.NXP did some cleanup on parts that are not described in their datasheeets – thanks. A number of products with F suffixes were removed (Cortex-M0 based), while the mysterious LPC810M021JN8 disapeared too.
On the Cortex-M3 front, the oddball parts we saw last month disappeared. They were labelled LPC18S and were not described in the nomenclature. 2 other parts, the LPC18UK and LPC18UC were in development and taken off as well.
Finally, the Cortex-M4+M0 families were updated with 2 new products, the LPC43S20FBD144 and LPC43S57JET256. Apparently, the S signifies without AES.
NXP had some good activity at the distribution this month with LPC1E67/68 and LPC11U67/68 generally down 20% across the volumes. LPC11C22FBD48/301 was up ~50% for all volumes below 100 units and LPC810M021FN8 up by close to 100% from 1 unit to 5k units.
Renesas continues the ramp up of the RL78 with the creation of the RL78/D1x for the automotive market. This will transition customers from the aging 78K0. For motor control, there are now 6 more products to complete the RL78/G1G family.
The RX relase was stronger with 27 products on the low end – RX111, 32 MHz, 48 or 64 pins, up to 544 kB of Flash and 4 RX63 100MHz 80 pins 544 or 416 kB of Flash.
Renesas experienced no price change.
Still no signs of movement at Silicon Labs, it’s been 16 months now since the acquisition of Energy Micro by Silicon Labs. No price change either…
The big news is the launch of the STM32F7 family based on the newly announced Cortex-M7.
ST demonstrated a working silicon of the family, the STM32F756NGH6 at the ARM Tech Con and got the Best of Show award.
The Cortex-M7 differentiates itself from its predecessors by its higher performance through:
- A six-stage pipeline
- Tightly-coupled memories
- A 64-bit AXI AMBA4 interface with I-cache and D-cache
Other differences are highlighted below (source: ARM):
The STM32F7 is the top of the line ST MCU and boasts all the high end interfaces, including
- 2 USB ports with 1 OTG FS and one OTG HS
- 1 Ethernet port
- 1 TFT LCD port
- 1 HDMI port
- 2 CAN
The list of all the building blocks is pretty impressive – see below, source STMicroelectronics.
When looking at the STM32 portfolio if STM wants to keep pin compatibility with the STM32F4, we will naturally see parts at 100, 144 and 176 pins – the larger red rings above STM32F4. The initial part is likely compatible with the other 7 parts at 216 pins.
On the frequency front, with Atmel at 300MHz, and ARM claiming 400MHz @40nm, we should expect higher frequencies, and there is room since the Cortex-M4 based ST parts are now maxed out at 180MHz.
Finally, higher processing and more interfaces will call for more code and data i.e. more Flash. Unless STM takes the route used by NXP with high frequency flashless devices interfacing through quad SPI to external Flash. The initial devices embed a dual quad SPI, see block diagram above, certainly adding flexibility to the design.
Oh, and there were 13 other new parts, but like last month, most of them are either TR (tape and reel) or industrial temp (-40 +105C) of existing parts.
Little price changes at ST.
TI released 4 new Tiva parts, mainly package variations of existing parts. On the MSP430 front, we found 30 new parts
- MSP430FR: 6 new parts, FRAM series
- MSP430I20: 24 new parts,for metering and industrial applications
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