Information
about ARM7 and ARM9
microcontrollers from Atmel and ST Microelectronics STM
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| Introduction ARM7 and ARM9 |
There
is a group of competing ARM7 products, the Cortex M3 based STM32 and
the ARM966 based STR9. All these devices are somewhat close in
performance. The SAM9 Series running at 200 MHz is another performance
class. The most interesting parts are the SAM9XE512, SAM9XE256 and SAM9XE128
presented March
2007 in Beijing
(pdf 6MB) and now announced in Europe. These devices are manufactured
in 0.15um technology. Another device on the rodamap is the SAM9XE1024,
a device in 0.13 um Flash with 1MBytes of Flash. The SRAM
size of
32 kB seems a little small, 16k I-cache and 8k D-cache. Preliminary data
about the SAM9XE512
are talking about 200 MHz from the 512K Flash, we expect great
performance. The preliminary Summary (short data sheet) for
the SAM9XE512, SAM9XE256, SAM9XE128
uploaded on February 13, 2008. There is already a software package (ZIP-file) for the SAM9XE available from the Atmel site. And one more, "Getting Started with AT91SAM9XE Microcontrollers" If you buy an evaluation kit, make sure you add SAM-ICE to your list, or J-Link, the same hardware but not restricted to Atmel devices. Pricing information for the SAM9XE devices from the Atmel Press Release: It starts at US-$ 7.30 in 10k quantities, I guess that is for the 128k Flash version. |
| CortexM3 based |
The STM32 performance
line STM32F103 (data
sheet, User Manual = Reference
Manual)
runs up to 72 MHz, the access line STM32F101 is limited to 36 MHz and
both are based on the new low end ARM core Cortex M3.
The Cortex M3 provides better debugging capabilities, a
divide instruction, a standardized core system with interrupt
controller and timers, it supports the Thumb2
instruction set, the only
catch is that it does not support the ARM instruction set and is
somewhat incompatible to existing ARM code. - 16 channel 12-bit ADC with
1Msamples/sec
- integrated temperature sensor, connected to ADC16 - 2 SPI, 2 I2C, 3 UARTs - 2 internal oscillators provide flexibility and power saving options - Wide range of Supply voltage for longer battery life |
| ARM7 or Cortex M3? |
There is no general answer for this question. If you have code for a SAM7S and want to migrate to a SAM7X, reasons to stay with the ARM7 are much better than to switch. If you have code for a LPC2103 and want to switch to a LPC2388, stick with the LPC2000 because they are highly code compatible like the SAM7 and SAM9 devices. If you start a new design and no need to be compatible to legacy code, have a very close look at the STM32 or also the Luminary Stellaris family of microcontrollers. Ther STM32 offers higher performance, the Stellaris LM3S8930, LM3S8933, LM3S8938, offer much more memory, an Ethernet MAC, CAN channels and dedicated 3-phase PWM timers. The Stellaris LM3S8962, LM3S8971 are specialized for Motion Control PWM. |
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| Tools for ARM based micros | This section is work in progress but and lists great tools |
|
Last
update, Mar. 28,
2008 |
Disclaimer: I make every effort
to post
correct data on this website but you use it at your own risk. |