Luminary Micro

I have been watching Luminary the last couple of months and I am
impressed with how they have brought out a number of chips using the
new Cortex M3 ARM core.  The chips have some nice features, such as
executing at the full 50 MHz from flash and being available in the
small 48 pin QFP.  They offer up to 64 KB of Flash which is the most in
a leaded package this small.

On the down side, they have limited combinations of peripherals, mostly
adjusting the number of ADC inputs and analog comparators.  They also
seem to be using an older fabrication technology, so the power
consumption is about on par with the ARM7 cores from other vendors
compared to the improved power consumption they could get if they used
more modern processes.

I see where Cortex 3M is supported by the IAR tools in the most current
release and I am told that GNU has supported it for some time.  I would
like to think they won't have many debugging issues, but can't say.

There seem to be many improvements to the ARM with this version
targeted to embedded applications.  One is that the interrupt
controller is part of the core rather than every vendor rolling their
own.  Another is that the interrupt response time is much tighter at 6
to 8 clock cycles, IIRC.

I have not heard any announcements from other companies about releasing
C3M chips anytime soon.  If this core is as good as it sounds, the ARM7
may shortly become old news and we might see a whole new wave of ARM
C3M devices taking over the embedded market.

Anyone planning to use Luminary MIcro devices in a product?  Any
experience with using tools with this new core?

BTW, I am updating the ARM MCU table at www.gnuarm.com to include their
devices.  Go to the resources page and scroll down to the ARM Chips
section.  There are three links  for the ARM device comparison chart,
HTML and two PDF formats.

rickman wrote:

> Anyone planning to use Luminary MIcro devices in a product?  Any
> experience with using tools with this new core?
>
Power requirements are too high, otherwise I would consider them.

rickman wrote:

> I have been watching Luminary the last couple of months and I am
> impressed with how they have brought out a number of chips using the
> new Cortex M3 ARM core.  The chips have some nice features, such as
> executing at the full 50 MHz from flash and being available in the
> small 48 pin QFP.  They offer up to 64 KB of Flash which is the most in
> a leaded package this small.

No external BUS ability ?

> 
> On the down side, they have limited combinations of peripherals, mostly
> adjusting the number of ADC inputs and analog comparators.  They also
> seem to be using an older fabrication technology, so the power
> consumption is about on par with the ARM7 cores from other vendors
> compared to the improved power consumption they could get if they used
> more modern processes.
> 
> I see where Cortex 3M is supported by the IAR tools in the most current
> release and I am told that GNU has supported it for some time.

You might find that GNU is compiler only. I have not seen comments on 
debug and simulator support ?

> I would  like to think they won't have many debugging issues, but can't say.
> 
> There seem to be many improvements to the ARM with this version
> targeted to embedded applications.  One is that the interrupt
> controller is part of the core rather than every vendor rolling their
> own.  Another is that the interrupt response time is much tighter at 6
> to 8 clock cycles, IIRC.
> 
> I have not heard any announcements from other companies about releasing
> C3M chips anytime soon.  If this core is as good as it sounds, the ARM7
> may shortly become old news and we might see a whole new wave of ARM
> C3M devices taking over the embedded market.

  So far, I have not seen independant benchmarks, but the peripherals are
slow. Only ARM seem to believe this is a 'hot new thing', worthy of the 
effort of change. (but of course, they have to say that..)

> 
> Anyone planning to use Luminary MIcro devices in a product?  Any
> experience with using tools with this new core?
> 
> BTW, I am updating the ARM MCU table at www.gnuarm.com to include their
> devices.  Go to the resources page and scroll down to the ARM Chips
> section.  There are three links  for the ARM device comparison chart,
> HTML and two PDF formats.

Good, just make sure you add a note that the C3M core is not _binary_ 
compatible with ARM7, (somewhat like the Z80 and 8080)- so you _will_ 
need new tool chains: Compilers/Libraries/Linkers/Debug/Simulator.

So, right now, this is single sourced & green : Given that, that's the 
same  selection category as Zilog ZNEO, and Freescale Coldfire V1.

Then you think : Who has the most peripheral experience of
Luminary, Zilog, Freescale ?

  A common problem with 32 bit ARM cores, is they are not easy to 
speed-calculate. There is a large hole of information, between the ARM 
manuals, and the vendors user manuals.
  So, you pretty much have to get one up and running, before you find
out just how fast/slow they really are at code details.

-jg

steve wrote:
> rickman wrote:
>
> > Anyone planning to use Luminary MIcro devices in a product?  Any
> > experience with using tools with this new core?
> >
> Power requirements are too high, otherwise I would consider them.

I've heard the power requirements will be eased in the final parts that
go into mass production.

Down the road they'll definitely use a smaller process, but I don't
know what the time table is for that.

Eric

Jim Granville wrote:

> You might find that GNU is compiler only. I have not seen comments on
> debug and simulator support ?

CodeSourcery has provided a gdb driver, and Luminary makes a Debug
Library available in source form to anyone who agrees to non-disclosure
of the proprietary details.

> So, right now, this is single sourced & green : Given that, that's the
> same  selection category as Zilog ZNEO, and Freescale Coldfire V1.

True, but only the 8051 is not single-sourced these days. You can't
replace Arm7 chips with parts from another maker, and not even the C
source code will be completely portable between Arm7 chips of different
makers.

> Then you think : Who has the most peripheral experience of

Luminary licensed the peripheral support from a more experienced firm
in this first set of chips so they could introduce a more mature set of
support peripherals in a new chip.

The biggest thing I like right now is Luminary's free library source
code. This is really non-trivial and better than any other offerings by
Arm7 makers. It's far better than the library source offered by ST
Micro.

Also, Luminary's tech support has been beyond belief. I've never had
that kind of attention to my queries from any other maker. Philips was
a favorite of mine until I tried dealing with their tech support. I'm a
small player in this business and Philips really doesn't see small
players on their radar screen at all. Half of the time they didn't
answer my support requests at all, and the other half of the time I got
back inappropriate form-letter style email responses that didn't
address my questions.

Luminary is a small company that really cares. That carries some weight
with me.

By the way, I understand that ST Micro also licensed the Cortex M3
core, but they haven't announced any specific chips yet. I was told
there were 5 licensees at the time I asked several months ago, but only
ST and Luminary were mentioned by name.

I'm more than a little confused by ST lately. They seem to be expanding
in many directions at once. I hope they're not over-extending
themselves. 

Eric

Eric wrote:
> steve wrote:
> > rickman wrote:
> >
> > > Anyone planning to use Luminary MIcro devices in a product?  Any
> > > experience with using tools with this new core?
> > >
> > Power requirements are too high, otherwise I would consider them.
>
> I've heard the power requirements will be eased in the final parts that
> go into mass production.
>
> Down the road they'll definitely use a smaller process, but I don't
> know what the time table is for that.
>
> Eric

That would be nice, but it seems that from the time of introduction of
a new core to production units seems to always require a measurement
unit of years, except for the Intel 4004, I think that was 6 months,
and that was from a memory company :)

Eric wrote:
> steve wrote:
> > rickman wrote:
> >
> > > Anyone planning to use Luminary MIcro devices in a product?  Any
> > > experience with using tools with this new core?
> > >
> > Power requirements are too high, otherwise I would consider them.
>
> I've heard the power requirements will be eased in the final parts that
> go into mass production.
>
> Down the road they'll definitely use a smaller process, but I don't
> know what the time table is for that.

I just had a telecon with LM personel and specifically mentioned that
their parts had nothing on the ARM7 competition when it came to power,
most likely because they were still at 0.25 um while everyone else was
doing 0.18 or finer.  Asking if they had future plans for power
reduction they offered nothing.  They only talked about parts with more
memory.

The two important aspects in our designs is size and power.  They are
in a good package, the TQFP48, but they are definitely not there on
power.  They also don't do any better on price although that is always
negotiable.  They made it very clear that price would not be an issue.

rickman wrote:

> Eric wrote:
> 
>>steve wrote:
>>
>>>rickman wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Anyone planning to use Luminary MIcro devices in a product?  Any
>>>>experience with using tools with this new core?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Power requirements are too high, otherwise I would consider them.
>>
>>I've heard the power requirements will be eased in the final parts that
>>go into mass production.
>>
>>Down the road they'll definitely use a smaller process, but I don't
>>know what the time table is for that.
> 
> 
> I just had a telecon with LM personel and specifically mentioned that
> their parts had nothing on the ARM7 competition when it came to power,
> most likely because they were still at 0.25 um while everyone else was
> doing 0.18 or finer.  Asking if they had future plans for power
> reduction they offered nothing.  They only talked about parts with more
> memory.

Keep in mind that as these things shrink, static Icc can climb markedly.
So finer devices are not always lower power. (FPGAs are a good example)

I also see their Icc spec mentions SRAM execution and does not specify
FLASH Icc ( which is often higher )
Remember Scenix, they got fast flash specs, but at the cost of very high
Icc values.

> 
> The two important aspects in our designs is size and power.  They are
> in a good package, the TQFP48, but they are definitely not there on
> power.  They also don't do any better on price although that is always
> negotiable.  They made it very clear that price would not be an issue.

Could you use two processors, a smaller, more frugal one to wake up the
more powerful one, when needed ?

-jg

Eric wrote:

> Jim Granville wrote:
> 
>>Then you think : Who has the most peripheral experience of
>>Luminary, Zilog, Freescale ? 
> 
> Luminary licensed the peripheral support from a more experienced firm
> in this first set of chips so they could introduce a more mature set of
> support peripherals in a new chip.

Hmmm. They buy the core from ARM, and the peripherals from someone else 
:( - that suggests the errata will be a long time being resolved ?
Some of the errata sound fundamental.

> 
> The biggest thing I like right now is Luminary's free library source
> code. This is really non-trivial and better than any other offerings by
> Arm7 makers. It's far better than the library source offered by ST
> Micro.

yes, that's a plus.

> 
> By the way, I understand that ST Micro also licensed the Cortex M3
> core, but they haven't announced any specific chips yet. I was told
> there were 5 licensees at the time I asked several months ago, but only
> ST and Luminary were mentioned by name.

CM3 makes sense in an ASIC, but is a harder sell into the merchant uC 
market, where you a buying a lot more than just the core.
( see rickman's comments on the Icc )

> 
> I'm more than a little confused by ST lately. They seem to be expanding
> in many directions at once. I hope they're not over-extending
> themselves. 

  Yes, they have lots of cores!. All the 8 bit ones, ARM7, ARM9, and 
their newest ST10 devices are quite powerful, if not super-cheap.
There was talk of an ARM uPSD as well !

-jg

Jim Granville wrote:
> rickman wrote:
>
> > I have been watching Luminary the last couple of months and I am
> > impressed with how they have brought out a number of chips using the
> > new Cortex M3 ARM core.  The chips have some nice features, such as
> > executing at the full 50 MHz from flash and being available in the
> > small 48 pin QFP.  They offer up to 64 KB of Flash which is the most in
> > a leaded package this small.
>
> No external BUS ability ?
>
> >
> > On the down side, they have limited combinations of peripherals, mostly
> > adjusting the number of ADC inputs and analog comparators.  They also
> > seem to be using an older fabrication technology, so the power
> > consumption is about on par with the ARM7 cores from other vendors
> > compared to the improved power consumption they could get if they used
> > more modern processes.
> >
> > I see where Cortex 3M is supported by the IAR tools in the most current
> > release and I am told that GNU has supported it for some time.
>
> You might find that GNU is compiler only. I have not seen comments on
> debug and simulator support ?
>

Crossworks supports it with their debugger and simulator. I haven't
tried them, though.

Leon