Microcontroller selection

> I'm just wondering if anyone is aware of any > 100MHz 16 bit or 32
> processors that are available in QFP packages? I need lots of GPIO as
> well as SPI and UART ports. I've looked at a couple but it seems to
> jump from 50-60 MHz general use processors from the likes Atmel and
> Freescale to >200MHz processors on par with PDA types of duties which
> are way beyond what I really need (and tend to be in BGA packages). It
> will basically bring in lots of sensor data as well as do some PWM
> functions. Any suggestions? I may just end up having to use 2 or 3 of
> the 50MHz processors instead. Most of the operations will be buffering
> up data as well bit shifting and simple logical functions like Masking,
> ORing, and ANDing

I think the other responders have you covered from the technical side.
Let me give you some advice from the execution side:

Avoid Intel parts unless you can live with absolutely no support.  If
you're not a big fish, Intel will ignore any and all support queries.
They even limit support access to their distributors.  If we had known
that prior to our Intel Xscale selection, we would have selected
something else.

My 2 cents, JJS

fenriswolfnews@hotmail.com wrote:

> Thanks for all the good suggestions. I'll look into them today. One
> person asked why I wanted 32 or 16 bit processors. I'd even use an 8
> bit one, however, I simply didn't find one with the numerous I/O and
> features that I need. The reduced code size is always a plus for 8
> bits, but a lot of architectures negate this extra with having tons of
> flash, so it didn't really bother. I am currently using an 8 bit atmel,
> but the new design requires a lot more I/O and speed than that little
> guy can muster. Thanks to everyone, you guys are excellent.

How much I/O (total, and any natural cluster sizes ) and what speed ?
The bigger parts do not always give faster IO interactions.

<paste>
> I also forgot to mention they won't let me use an fpga here,
> unfortunately. It was my first thought as well; I've used xilinx a lot
> in the past.

Will they let you use a CPLD ? ;)

-jg

<fenriswolfnews@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1146670672.085760.252690@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks for all the good suggestions. I'll look into them today. One
> person asked why I wanted 32 or 16 bit processors. I'd even use an 8
> bit one, however, I simply didn't find one with the numerous I/O and
> features that I need. The reduced code size is always a plus for 8
> bits, but a lot of architectures negate this extra with having tons of
> flash, so it didn't really bother. I am currently using an 8 bit atmel,
> but the new design requires a lot more I/O and speed than that little
> guy can muster. Thanks to everyone, you guys are excellent.
>

How about cygnal ( now silabs ) ?
fast devices with up to 64 pins i/o uart,spi etc..

TheDoc wrote:
> <fenriswolfnews@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1146670672.085760.252690@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>> Thanks for all the good suggestions. I'll look into them today. One
>> person asked why I wanted 32 or 16 bit processors. I'd even use an 8
>> bit one, however, I simply didn't find one with the numerous I/O and
>> features that I need. The reduced code size is always a plus for 8
>> bits, but a lot of architectures negate this extra with having tons
>> of flash, so it didn't really bother. I am currently using an 8 bit
>> atmel, but the new design requires a lot more I/O and speed than
>> that little guy can muster. Thanks to everyone, you guys are
>> excellent.
>>
>
> How about cygnal ( now silabs ) ?
> fast devices with up to 64 pins i/o uart,spi etc..

Since you can get 100 pin AVRs that is probably not what he is looking for.

-- 
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
ulf@a-t-m-e-l.com
This message is intended to be my own personal view and it
may or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB

You really need to define your requirements better.  "Lots of I/O" does not
say anything.  Do you need 8 bit, 16, or 32 bit I/O, or just single control
lines.  How many?  That makes a BIG difference.  The AT91RM9200 has 208
pins, quite a bit of I/O, but you can't talk to an external bus device with
32 bits.  If you need that (32), you might look at the Sharp LH79524.  Lots
of good Philips parts too in the LPC2000 family.  Depends if you want ARM7or
ARM9.

You say you don't want FPGA (CPLD?),  Well do you want to have to add
external Flash and SDRAM chips?  If not, than stay away from ARM9 parts and
stick to ARM7 with built in flash and SRAM.

Just saying you want 100MHz is not a reliable indicator of speed for
anything.  Some 50MHz parts could have much higher speed than a 100MHz part.
That is a very complex subject.  The Philips LPC2000 60MHz parts run a 128
bit wide memory access to their internal flash that allows for Zero wait
states at full 60MHz.  That's probably faster than a 100MHz part with wait
states.

There's a ton of MCUs on the market today.  You need to refine your
requirements in detail to select what fits your real priorities and needs.

How long does you design need to be in production?  Some Semi vendors are
now saying only 5-7 years on their new MCUs.

I've done two recent designs with ARM7, and I don't want to use anything but
ARM now unless I really had to.  There were over 1.3B ARM cpus shipped last
year.  They are taking over the market.  I have to design for 15 year
product life, and I won't touch anything but ARM now.  Many proprietary CPU
cores may not be around in the future.  Too few in use = discontinued parts.

Chris.

You could try to search for a chip matching your needs at:
http://www.sevensandnines.com/chipselector

Tomas

johnspeth@yahoo.com> escribi� en el mensaje 
news:1146675334.570821.213930@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
>> I'm just wondering if anyone is aware of any > 100MHz 16 bit or 32
>> processors that are available in QFP packages? I need lots of GPIO as
>> well as SPI and UART ports. I've looked at a couple but it seems to
>> jump from 50-60 MHz general use processors from the likes Atmel and
>> Freescale to >200MHz processors on par with PDA types of duties which
>> are way beyond what I really need (and tend to be in BGA packages). It
>> will basically bring in lots of sensor data as well as do some PWM
>> functions. Any suggestions? I may just end up having to use 2 or 3 of
>> the 50MHz processors instead. Most of the operations will be buffering
>> up data as well bit shifting and simple logical functions like Masking,
>> ORing, and ANDing
>
> I think the other responders have you covered from the technical side.
> Let me give you some advice from the execution side:
>


Why not to use an FPGA with an embedded soft CPU core? Xilinx' Picoblaze 
running on a Spartan3 FPAG could serve you very well. You can get it running 
at very high speed and can have any level of parallelism you want. It would 
be rather low cost and a perfect fit for the functions you are looking for. 
And won't ever be discontinued!

Regards.

-- 
------------------------------
Jaime Andr�s Aranguren Cardona
jaac@sanjaac.com
SanJaaC Electronics
Soluciones en DSP
www.sanjaac.com



*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

Jaime Andr�s Aranguren Cardona wrote:
> johnspeth@yahoo.com> escribi� en el mensaje 
> news:1146675334.570821.213930@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
> 
>>>I'm just wondering if anyone is aware of any > 100MHz 16 bit or 32
>>>processors that are available in QFP packages? I need lots of GPIO as
>>>well as SPI and UART ports. I've looked at a couple but it seems to
>>>jump from 50-60 MHz general use processors from the likes Atmel and
>>>Freescale to >200MHz processors on par with PDA types of duties which
>>>are way beyond what I really need (and tend to be in BGA packages). It
>>>will basically bring in lots of sensor data as well as do some PWM
>>>functions. Any suggestions? I may just end up having to use 2 or 3 of
>>>the 50MHz processors instead. Most of the operations will be buffering
>>>up data as well bit shifting and simple logical functions like Masking,
>>>ORing, and ANDing
>>
>>I think the other responders have you covered from the technical side.
>>Let me give you some advice from the execution side:
>>
> 
> Why not to use an FPGA with an embedded soft CPU core? Xilinx' Picoblaze 
> running on a Spartan3 FPAG could serve you very well. You can get it running 
> at very high speed and can have any level of parallelism you want. It would 
> be rather low cost and a perfect fit for the functions you are looking for. 
> And won't ever be discontinued!

Do you mean the SoftCPU, or the FPGA it runs on ?
There is a definite EOL cycle in FPGAs, and it bites first in the tool
flows - they drop off the not-for-new-design device support, so you
are 'encouraged' to change your HW on a regular cycle....

We still don't know what 'lots of GPIO' means, but appart from the OPs 
mention that they won't let him use a FPGA, this is a reasonable suggestion.

If his task is similar to cable testers, then a CPLD would give both 
very high speed IO, plus some data compression at the IO nodes, to
plunge the processor operations needed.

-jg

STR9 -->  96 MHz

"nicolas.fillon" wrote:
> 
> STR9 -->  96 MHz

Is this supposed to have some meaning to anyone?  See my sig.
below, and especially, read the referenced URLs.  Google is not
usenet.

-- 
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