Microchip PIC32MZ Flash Microcontroller is the World's Fastest 32-bit MCU

http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp

The Microchip PIC32MZ runs at 330MIPS at 200MHz and easily competes against the Cortex-M4.

Includes a Microchip PIC32MZ block diagram and friendly roadmap for the PIC32 family.

Bill Giovino
http://Microcontroller.com

On 20-Nov-13 4:34 PM, Bill Giovino wrote:
> http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp
>
> The Microchip PIC32MZ runs at 330MIPS at 200MHz and easily competes against the Cortex-M4.
>
> Includes a Microchip PIC32MZ block diagram and friendly roadmap for the PIC32 family.
>
> Bill Giovino
> http://Microcontroller.com

Check out the errata. No Hi-Speed USB or SQI support and various other cripple-ware items.

http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/80000588A.pdf



-- 
Don McKenzie

All Olimex products now 30%+ off normal Olimex Prices.

Now 50% OFF. Only $18 for an Olinuxino Linux PC:
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/olinuxino.html

The World's Cheapest Computer:
DuinoMite the PIC32 $20 Basic Computer-MicroController
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/the-maximite-computer.html
Add VGA Monitor/TV, and PS2 Keyboard, or use USB Terminal
Arduino Shield, Programmed in Basic, or C.

Bill Giovino <billgiovino@gmail.com> writes:
> http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp
> The Microchip PIC32MZ runs at 330MIPS at 200MHz 

What does this mean about being the fastest MCU?  Why is it interesting,
since there are SOC's running at 1ghz and faster, not to mention vector
DSP's and that sort of thing?  Also, the PIC32MZ doesn't appear to have
any floating point arithmetic, unlike the M4 which it seems to position
itself against.  It would be more interesting if the PIC had IEEE double
precision, since the ARM M4F only has single precision.

On 2013-11-20, Don McKenzie <5V@2.5A> wrote:
> On 20-Nov-13 4:34 PM, Bill Giovino wrote:
>> http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp
>>
>> The Microchip PIC32MZ runs at 330MIPS at 200MHz and easily competes against the Cortex-M4.
>>
>> Includes a Microchip PIC32MZ block diagram and friendly roadmap for the PIC32 family.
>>
>> Bill Giovino
>> http://Microcontroller.com
>
> Check out the errata. No Hi-Speed USB or SQI support and various other cripple-ware items.
>
> http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/80000588A.pdf
>

That's one hell of a errata list; it looks like the PIC32MZ was released
at least 6 months too early.

If anyone is thinking of using the PIC32MZ, you _really_ need to check out
the above errata list as the first document you read.

Simon.

PS: I loved how the workaround for the Hi-Speed USB mode not working was
to use the Full Speed mode instead. :-)

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

On Wednesday, November 20, 2013 2:24:33 AM UTC-6, Paul Rubin wrote:
> Bill Giovino writes:
> 
> > http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp
> 
> > The Microchip PIC32MZ runs at 330MIPS at 200MHz 
> 
> 
> 
> What does this mean about being the fastest MCU?  Why is it interesting,
> since there are SOC's running at 1ghz and faster, not to mention vector
> DSP's and that sort of thing?  Also, the PIC32MZ doesn't appear to have
> any floating point arithmetic, unlike the M4 which it seems to position
> itself against.  It would be more interesting if the PIC had IEEE double
> precision, since the ARM M4F only has single precision.

http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp
By fastest MCU, I mean a general-purpose device - a microcontroller (not an SoC) with Flash and SRAM and peripherals. 330MIPS at that class is the best I've seen.

Thanks for your interest and your questions here, I will do my best to get your answers to your other questions and get back to you.

Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-earth.ufp> wrote:
> On 2013-11-20, Don McKenzie <5V@2.5A> wrote:

>> Check out the errata. No Hi-Speed USB or SQI support and various other cripple-ware items.
>> http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/80000588A.pdf
> That's one hell of a errata list; it looks like the PIC32MZ was released
> at least 6 months too early.

At the same time, it's released late. I can't imagine anyone 
otherwise willingly releasing a chip with several marquee features not 
working.

Sadly this seems par for the course for Microchip. Pretty much all of 
their chips have long errata lists, and many of the errors are of the 
serious kind. 

> PS: I loved how the workaround for the Hi-Speed USB mode not working was
> to use the Full Speed mode instead. :-)

The PIC32MZ starter kits are advertised as shipping with 4MB of SQI 
flash installed. I can only wait for the early adopters start asking why 
they can't get it working on Microchip's forums.

-a

On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:24:33 -0800, Paul Rubin wrote:

> Bill Giovino <billgiovino@gmail.com> writes:
>> http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp The Microchip
>> PIC32MZ runs at 330MIPS at 200MHz
> 
> What does this mean about being the fastest MCU?  Why is it interesting,
> since there are SOC's running at 1ghz and faster, not to mention vector
> DSP's and that sort of thing?  Also, the PIC32MZ doesn't appear to have
> any floating point arithmetic, unlike the M4 which it seems to position
> itself against.  It would be more interesting if the PIC had IEEE double
> precision, since the ARM M4F only has single precision.

IEEE double precision takes a lot more hardware to get really fast 
operation.

I sometimes wonder if there wouldn't be a way to implement double-
precision floating point in hardware that wouldn't take up more space 
than 'fast' single-precision FP, but at the cost of a few clock ticks.  
For a lot of algorithms, a double-precision calculation that happened 1/4 
as fast as an in-hardware single-precision calculation would still be far 
better than either taking the precision hit of 32-bit, or the speed hit 
of software synthesized 64 bit.

-- 
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com

On Wednesday, November 20, 2013 8:55:34 AM UTC-8, Tim Wescott wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:24:33 -0800, Paul Rubin wrote:
> 
> > Bill Giovino <billgiovino@gmail.com> writes:
> >> http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp The Microchip
> >> PIC32MZ runs at 330MIPS at 200MHz
> 
> > What does this mean about being the fastest MCU?  Why is it interesting,
> > since there are SOC's running at 1ghz and faster, not to mention vector
> > DSP's and that sort of thing?  Also, the PIC32MZ doesn't appear to have
> > any floating point arithmetic, unlike the M4 which it seems to position
> > itself against.  It would be more interesting if the PIC had IEEE double
> > precision, since the ARM M4F only has single precision.
> 
> IEEE double precision takes a lot more hardware to get really fast 
> operation.
> 
> I sometimes wonder if there wouldn't be a way to implement double-
> precision floating point in hardware that wouldn't take up more space 
> than 'fast' single-precision FP, but at the cost of a few clock ticks.  
> For a lot of algorithms, a double-precision calculation that happened 1/4 
> as fast as an in-hardware single-precision calculation would still be far 
> better than either taking the precision hit of 32-bit, or the speed hit 
> of software synthesized 64 bit.

Have not seen any docs yet.  If they are following the path of dsPIC30, it will likely have 40 bits accumulator and barrel shifter.  It should make double-precision much faster.

Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.please> writes:
> IEEE double precision takes a lot more hardware to get really fast
> operation....  For a lot of algorithms, a double-precision calculation
> that happened 1/4 as fast as an in-hardware single-precision
> calculation would still be far better

Right, that's what I had in mind, it shouldn't take much more hardware
to use the same DSP blocks to do double precision while taking a 4x
slowdown for multiplication and division, and hopefully not much worse
than 2x for addition.  For transcendentals you might need slightly
larger ROM tables for coefficients.

The Intel Quark might be of interest: 

  http://arduino.cc/en/ArduinoCertified/IntelGalileo

It has a 400 mhz Pentium-class processor which presumably includes
double and extended precision, plus it has various other stuff that make
it nicer in some ways than a Beaglebone, while staying in the same
general price class ($70 at Mouser).

2013-11-20 06:34, Bill Giovino skrev:
> http://microcontroller.com/news/Microchip_PIC32MZ.asp
>
> The Microchip PIC32MZ runs at 330MIPS at 200MHz and easily competes against the Cortex-M4.
>
> Includes a Microchip PIC32MZ block diagram and friendly roadmap for the PIC32 family.
>
> Bill Giovino
> http://Microcontroller.com
>

And you are sure that this is faster than the Atmel AT91SAM9XE
ARM926 based flash microcontroller which been around for 3-4 years?
Running at 180 MHz but different architecture/flash and it
can execute out of external SDRAM, which the PIC32MZ
cannot do, according to the block diagram.

It is not clear what kind of bandwidth you will get from the flash,
but most flash memories will not run more than 20 MHz
so running out of DRAM is typically faster.

You can of course argue that it is cheating, but
if the definition is that you have internal SRAM and Flash,
then the SAM9XE fits.

In a real application, you are going to have problems if peripherals
have to be handled in interrupes, and not with DMA,
and the PIC32MZ only has 8 channels, which is not a lot.

BR
Ulf Samuelsson