Infineon XMC1000, XMC4000

Hello All,

the Infineon ARM Cortex derivatives (XMC4000 CM4, XMC1000 CM0) look
very interesting. Advanced peripherals, good value for the money.

Is anybody actually working with them and wants to tell something
about what to observe?

TIA,

Oliver
-- 
Oliver Betz, Munich
despammed.com is broken, use Reply-To:

Oliver Betz <obetz@despammed.com> wrote:
> Hello All,

> the Infineon ARM Cortex derivatives (XMC4000 CM4, XMC1000 CM0) look
> very interesting. Advanced peripherals, good value for the money.

> Is anybody actually working with them and wants to tell something
> about what to observe?

You should observe the request to accept an incredible restrictive licence
even when downloading the datasheet. For anything you tell in public, _you_
are required to prove that the fact was public know before or you may be sued.

Bye
-- 
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

On Friday, November 15, 2013 12:46:55 AM UTC+13, Oliver Betz wrote:
> the Infineon ARM Cortex derivatives (XMC4000 CM4, XMC1000 CM0) look
> very interesting. Advanced peripherals, good value for the money.
> 
> Is anybody actually working with them and wants to tell something
> about what to observe?

Yes, Nice parts, but XMC1xxx still showing 'coming soon' on the status lines.
They seem to be a long time hitting final release.

Meanwhile, there is also Cypress PSoC4, and Nuvoton, and Freescale MKE02Z all seem to be more available.

-jg

Uwe Bonnes wrote:

[...]

>> Is anybody actually working with them and wants to tell something
>> about what to observe?
>
>You should observe the request to accept an incredible restrictive licence
>even when downloading the datasheet. For anything you tell in public, _you_
>are required to prove that the fact was public know before or you may be sued.

I agree that it is extremly annoying, but although I'm not a lawyer,
I'm pretty sure that this is a paper tiger.

Oliver
-- 
Oliver Betz, Munich
despammed.com is broken, use Reply-To:

j.m.granville@gmail.com wrote:

>> the Infineon ARM Cortex derivatives (XMC4000 CM4, XMC1000 CM0) look
>> very interesting. Advanced peripherals, good value for the money.
>> 
>> Is anybody actually working with them and wants to tell something
>> about what to observe?
>
>Yes, Nice parts, but XMC1xxx still showing 'coming soon' on the status lines.
>They seem to be a long time hitting final release.

Correct. And the errata sheets for current silicon describe problems I
don't want to deal with.

>Meanwhile, there is also Cypress PSoC4, and Nuvoton, and Freescale MKE02Z all seem to be more available.

PSoC4 analog functions are somewhat disappointing, a PGA would be very
useful for me (currently I'm using an external chip for this). No low
pin count packages.

Nuvoton also lacks LPC packages, besides this it's oscillator
stability isn't good enough. Well, as long as Infineon doesn't get
their oscillator temperature compensation working (read: documented),
it's not better.

MKE02Z is IMO a compatibility kludge. Who wants to use still the old
9S08P peripherals, not even a fractional baud rate generator? Well, I
had less porting effort, because I have a siginificant 9S08 code base.
No LPC packages.

Oliver
-- 
Oliver Betz, Munich
despammed.com is broken, use Reply-To:

On 15/11/2013 08:18, Oliver Betz wrote:
> Uwe Bonnes wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>> Is anybody actually working with them and wants to tell something
>>> about what to observe?
>>
>> You should observe the request to accept an incredible restrictive licence
>> even when downloading the datasheet. For anything you tell in public, _you_
>> are required to prove that the fact was public know before or you may be sued.
>
> I agree that it is extremly annoying, but although I'm not a lawyer,
> I'm pretty sure that this is a paper tiger.
>
> Oliver
>
The legal nonsense that Infineon try to apply before you read a data 
sheet may or may not have an real force but mainly it tells you about 
the attitude of the supplier. I don't get this nonsense from NXP or ST 
or TI or Freescale or SL - why should I bother with Infineon if they 
start out by chucking legal bricks at me ?

Michael Kellett

On 2013-11-15, MK <mk@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
> On 15/11/2013 08:18, Oliver Betz wrote:
>> Uwe Bonnes wrote:
>>>
>>> You should observe the request to accept an incredible restrictive licence
>>> even when downloading the datasheet. For anything you tell in public, _you_
>>> are required to prove that the fact was public know before or you may be sued.
>>
>> I agree that it is extremly annoying, but although I'm not a lawyer,
>> I'm pretty sure that this is a paper tiger.
>>
>> Oliver
>>
> The legal nonsense that Infineon try to apply before you read a data 
> sheet may or may not have an real force but mainly it tells you about 
> the attitude of the supplier. I don't get this nonsense from NXP or ST 
> or TI or Freescale or SL - why should I bother with Infineon if they 
> start out by chucking legal bricks at me ?
>
> Michael Kellett

I agree with you about NXP/ST/Freescale (I don't use SiLabs) but I don't
agree with including TI in that list.

If you try to download the example bare metal source kit from TI (called
StarterWare) you have to go through export control procedures. That's
insane for some example code which other vendors freely provide their
versions of on their own website. :-(

You have to wait several days for a download link to be emailed to you
and when it doesn't arrive and you contact TI, they want your full
contact details (including full home address and telephone number)
in order to establish that it's ok to download some sample code. :-(

I've no wish to be subjected to full export control checking and
stamping over my privacy just for some example code which can be
created anyway (with enough time) using the information publicly
available on TI's website. :-(

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

On 15/11/2013 13:08, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2013-11-15, MK <mk@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 15/11/2013 08:18, Oliver Betz wrote:
>>> Uwe Bonnes wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You should observe the request to accept an incredible restrictive licence
>>>> even when downloading the datasheet. For anything you tell in public, _you_
>>>> are required to prove that the fact was public know before or you may be sued.
>>>
>>> I agree that it is extremly annoying, but although I'm not a lawyer,
>>> I'm pretty sure that this is a paper tiger.
>>>
>>> Oliver
>>>
>> The legal nonsense that Infineon try to apply before you read a data
>> sheet may or may not have an real force but mainly it tells you about
>> the attitude of the supplier. I don't get this nonsense from NXP or ST
>> or TI or Freescale or SL - why should I bother with Infineon if they
>> start out by chucking legal bricks at me ?
>>
>> Michael Kellett
>
> I agree with you about NXP/ST/Freescale (I don't use SiLabs) but I don't
> agree with including TI in that list.
>
> If you try to download the example bare metal source kit from TI (called
> StarterWare) you have to go through export control procedures. That's
> insane for some example code which other vendors freely provide their
> versions of on their own website. :-(
>
> You have to wait several days for a download link to be emailed to you
> and when it doesn't arrive and you contact TI, they want your full
> contact details (including full home address and telephone number)
> in order to establish that it's ok to download some sample code. :-(
>
> I've no wish to be subjected to full export control checking and
> stamping over my privacy just for some example code which can be
> created anyway (with enough time) using the information publicly
> available on TI's website. :-(
>
> Simon.
>
Thanks for the info Simon - I haven't got past data sheets with TI in 
the last year or more.

Michael Kellett

On 2013-11-15, MK <mk@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
> Thanks for the info Simon - I haven't got past data sheets with TI in 
> the last year or more.
>
> Michael Kellett

You are welcome. This was for the version of StarterWare for the Beaglebone
Black, BTW.

Here's a copy of the email I was sent by TI when I asked why I didn't
receive the download link:

|Thank you for your inquiry submitted to Texas Instruments Semiconductor
|Technical Support.  Due to export compliance and to help safeguard national
|security, Texas Instruments must know to whom they are providing information.
|This will only be necessary for your initial contact. Please use the link below
|to complete the contact information:
|
|http://www-k.ext.ti.com/sc/technical-support/email-tech-support.asp
|
|The following is a link to TI's privacy policy:
|http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/legal/privacy.htm

Note how the phone number, full postal address and email address are all
mandatory. Since I do my embedded work as a hobby this means they want
all my personal identification details, not some corporate identification
(hence the home address reference in my last message).

Absolutely and totally insane when required in the context of some "export
control", especially since what's been revealed over the last few months
about the US's misuse of their capabilities and how completely innocent
people are monitored just because they can be.

On the plus side, TI's TRM for the MCU on the Beaglebone Black is very
detailed indeed. I wish all manuals were this detailed.

I wish the Allwinner MCUs came with this level of detailed documentation.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

On Friday, November 15, 2013 9:19:38 PM UTC+13, Oliver Betz wrote:
>And the errata sheets for current silicon describe problems I
>don't want to deal with.

You could ask Infineon what 'coming soon' really means, and when fixed silicon is due ?


> MKE02Z is IMO a compatibility kludge. Who wants to use still the old
> 9S08P peripherals, not even a fractional baud rate generator? 

 I have to agree that anyone supplying a 32 bit controller, they then decide to put 16 bit timers into (?!), needs their head read.

-jg