> As far as I can tell, ARMs are in a different class. (Price, complexity, > performance, etc.) > > Ken >
They ARE in a different class:) They're cheaper AND faster. The ARM support community is bigger than any PIC/TI/AVR/etc. (probably bigger than anything but the x86.) As examples: 1) NXP LPC1111 (Cortex M0) is <$0.50 in qty. Digikey has for ~$2 for singles. Its cheaper then a HC08QT/QY w/ more pins, more speed, lower power, more memory, 32bit vs 8, etc, etc. 2) ST STM32F407 (Cortex M4F) is ~$5 in qty (depends on memory). Digikey has for ~$11 for single in VET6 pkg. 200MIPS, Ethernet MAC, USB, 192kB RAM, 512kB FLASH, 24x 12bit ADC (~7MSPS in some modes) and *SINGLE CYCLE* IEEE754 single-precision floating point multiply or add. MAC is 2cyc. Divides and SQRT instructions take only 14 cycles. Just doing a quick digikey ATmega search finds the AVR ATMega2560 (maybe not the best comparison but Im in a hurry). $18ea, 8kB RAM, 256kB flash, 16MIPS, 8-bit processor. Not even on the same continent. Like I said, we've used them all at work (we have millions of units shipped). We were fairly dedicated PIC fans until we needed something w/ more memory than a PIC18. That lead us to ARM after a fairly exhaustive comparison of EVERYTHING. The icing on the cake was the tiny processors like the LPC1111 that were *WAY* better and (marginally) cheaper than the HC08s we use on our super low end products (the equivalent of a 'toaster':)). It REALLY opened our eyes. We had no idea ARMs had penetrated so low end into the mkt. There are dozens of companies making thousands of ARM processor variations. One will have the peripherial/memory flavor at the price point you need. The code is mostly compatible from the top to bottom of the cortex line (and *WAY* more than porting from TI to AVR to PIC, etc) Stephen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
