Embedded World = new MCU products
15
Mar
2014
Embedded World has gone, but scores of new products have come!
Most of the major players announced at least a new product or family at the show.
In particular, Renesas continues to invest in its homegrown architectures, and announced an upgrade to its RX architecture, while Atmel, Freescale, NXP and ST flooded the market with even more Cortex-M based parts.
The contrast is also strong in the target markets: FSL and NXP for motor control, Atmel and ST for the low end/low power segments and Renesas for “industrial equipment, network devices, and other applications requiring advanced real-time performance and large-capacity memory”.
Atmel
Atmel announced no less than 3 new products families, all based on the Cortex M0+ with a little over 30 parts.
- The 48MHz D21 supports USB host/device and spans 32 to 256 kB of Flash.
- The D11 only spans 8-16kB of Flash and keeps a USB device-only…
- while the D10 lacks USB connectivity.
Interestingly, all 3 families provide capacitive touch channel support. Samples and tools will be available by June this year.
Freescale
MKV10 is priced from $1.18 to $1.27 in 10k units. It sport 2 16-bit ADC and a 12-bit DAC.
NXP
This is an area where there is quite some competition with e.g. Freescale Kinetis V and TI MSP430 or C2000.
The new family supports brushless DC (BLDC) motors, permanent-magnet synchronous motors (PMSM), and AC induction motors (ACIM).
The LPC15 includes 2 12-bit 2Msps ADC as well as a QEI and 4 analog comparators. 13 products were announced from 64 to 256kB of Flash, CAN while the top of the line LPC154 includes a USB port.
Silicon and boards are available now with the silicon priced at $1.91 to $3.25 per 10k. Interestingly, FSL’s Kinetis V is not directly competing with the LPC15 just now as it only embeds 16 or 32 kB of Flash.Renesas
Another family annoucement at Embedded World came from Renesas: the new RX64 is powered by the new RX v2 core that boasts a 1.6x performance improvement over the RX v1 core as well as a 40% reduction in power consumption.
64 parts were uncovered at the show.
Contrary to all the other annoucements, Renesas is pursuing the high end market with the RX64, namely the industrial equipment, network devices, and other applications requiring advanced real-time performance and large-capacity memory.
Although no new RL78 family was announced, over 30 products appeared this month.
SiliconLabs
ST Microelectronics
The Cortex M0+ STM32L0 also added over 20 products.
Finally, an additional 9 products, mostly in the F0 family (Cortex M0) completed this active month.
Texas Instruments
TI has been fairly quiet this month with only a handful of MSP430 part numbers appearing.
TI quits on Tiva?
15
Feb
2014
TI has announced 1,100 layoffs last month, and the Tiva (former Luminary Micro) team was on the chopping block. Will the Cortex-M architecture be taken off the MCU map at TI?
Atmel
Atmel is slowly getting rid of the reel parts (suffixed R), 37 this month, all in the SAM4S family, with the regular part (no R suffix) staying the same.
Concurrently, they are launching 22 parts in the low end side of the SAM4S, namely the SAM4S2 and SAM4S4 with 128 and 256 kB of Flash respectively, 120MHz and 1 USB, below $2.8/$3.5 at Mouser.
Freescale
We also removed most of the obsolete parts (83 in total).
NXP
Renesas
Renesas had a stable RX and RL78 portfolio this month, apart from the R5F5631NFDLH being removed.
In the RX family, 16 products from the RX623 family and 4 parts from the RX210 family went into production while not less than 63 parts (RX63xx) came into sampling status. In the RL78 family 41 additional parts were put in production and 39 sampled.
SiliconLabs
ST Microelectronics
The STM32L0 family is offered in three lines:
- Access line (March)
- USB line (March)
- USB/LCD line (now): STM32L0x3 (x=5 no AES, x=6 AES)
Common features include a power consumption of 139 uA/MHz @ 32MHz, 87 uA/MHz using an optimized mode, and 400nA in Stop mode with full RAM retention and a 3.5us wake-up time.
The series also include up to 64kB Flash, up to 8KB SRAM, and 2KB EEPROM.
Other features include:
- Hardware oversampling capability for 16-bit ADC resolution
- Hardware engine encryption (AES) as an option
- Devices with USB support battery charger detection/link power management and a crystal-less operation
Packages proposed are:
- UQFN 32 (5x5mm)
- LQFP 32 (7x7mm)
- LQFP 48 (7x7mm)
- LQFP 64 (10x10mm)
- BGA 64 (5x5mm)
This product segment doesn’t look like too crowded yet. Freescale MKL04 is a bit oversized at 128 kB Flash for now, but smaller version are surely in the works. Renesas offers the RL78 with USB and LCD support, but for now at a larger footprint. Silicon Labs/Energy Micro have the Zero gecko, but none has USB or an LCD controller, in essence the same limitation that the Atmel SAMD20 suffers from. Finally, TI has the MSP430F6 but like Freescale, the Flash size doesn’t go below 128kB.
Now, this announcement shouldn’t shadow the other changes made to the portfolio. In addition to the 12 STM32L0, parts, 43 other low end parts were introduced. They are divided between the F031/71 and the F042. Looking at the specifications, though, there is a large overlap with the F050 which is being progressively removed – 4 parts this month have disappeared and all the rest has been obsoleted. It would be interesting to check if the process has changed with the 31/71. The F072, looks also very similar to the F102 albeit with a Cortex M3.
The F0x1 have touch sense but no USB, while the F0x2 have both.
7 F401 parts were introduced in the same batch, these are larger Flash parts – 512kB.
Finally, the F313 is no longer with us and in the F383, only the WLCSP part remains.
Texas Instruments
With the decision to layoff 1,100 personel, the Tiva team is reduced, with a possible shutdown of the operations in Austin. It is unclear whether the Cortex M architecture will continue on standalone at TI. Possible clues are found in the presence of a Cortex M in the C2000 family. But, at the same time, the MSP430 remains very strong with a portfolio of 1800 parts, of which 45 were added last month, mostly in the 430F5 and F6 families (USB and LCD+USB).
In the Tiva camp, the 129 series separate web page was folded into the Tiva 123 one, and there was no change in the portfolio.
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