Does ARMs support bytes?

Hi Richard,

I really shouldn't comment on this non-technical issue ;)

Please check if any of your current customers will be using Cortex. If there is any, try push the ARM sale guys saying that you need to support your customer. Also it should be much easier now as the V7 architecture is officially released.

Joseph

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Joseph, it seems to me that it should be enough to hear that Richard is willing to apply his own personal time into this business area. He already exists, is making his own way in the world, has a demonstrated level of competence, and is asking for very little by way of help in order to invest a serious amount of his own time. Would you imagine any rational person would do that, without any prospects of evidence or belief that the time will pay off??

It seems that Richard may have more confidence in the future of this processor than ARM's own people do.

If I were Richard, I might be a little offended at the suggestion that I might have such bad business sense and hadn't already found that there was customer interest in the new CPU core before committing myself to the idea of fielding a new target for my compiler tool.

I know you aren't marketing or sales here. And I'm only yelling at you because you are here to hear it. You cannot do anything about this. But it does shock me to the core, Joseph, that ARM acts this way towards a legitimate compiler vendor. (It's the kind of thing that makes me wonder if they have a personal axe to grind in the compiler arena or hidden associations they are trying to protect.)

I see no excuse, none, for Richard to have experienced what he has from ARM, enough to say, "I asked several times for NDA and info but to no avail."

Jon

Hi Jonathan, Richard,

I apologise if I offend anyone here. Hope Richard is not offended by my previous comments.

And thanks for your comment Jonathan.

There are large number of issues about releasing information in this business which are undisclosed to public. Especially when the information could be linked to intellectual properties or patents of ARM or 3rd parties. So potentially the NDA you have to sign is not only one, but a number of NDA from different companies. Or if patent issue is found, we have to stop signing new NDA immediately until problem is solved.

As you understand there is nothing I can do (or shouldn't even comment in public) about how marketing people do their work. But in general we are trying our best to provide information the best we can. I am not in the position of handling enquiries of this nature, but you might try write to Press Contacts staffs

to see if they have idea about how you can get hold of the required information. I am quite certain that ARM will release instruction set details to public, but possibly not on ARM website (as you might noticed the current ARM architecture reference manual is published by ADDISON WESLEY, and it not available on ARM web site).

If you don't mind I hope to finish this news thread here. If anyone got questions regarding the Cortex or V7 architecture, it is better to post it on comp.sys.arm as there are more ARM people reading that newsgroup so you could get better answer from there.

Hope this helps.

Joseph

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Perhaps Richard should ask again, and report back ? He could also ask whom he could talk with to get engineering samples of Coretex silicon ( because ARM will know who has this 'nearly out' )- some of the docs were from mid 2003, so that indicates ES silicon is around about now.... -jg

Joseph, I am sure Jon was not offended by yourself, but by the low technical merit in ARMs policies..

.. and I can see no technical reason for this chestnut either! Could there possibly be some obtuse legal reason for this ?

a) I thought this was not publicly released info ? b) Nice to see you anticipate Cortex to have zero relevence to embedded apps & designers ?

-jg

I've no horse in this race, Joseph. So I just tried putting myself in Richard's place and wondering about how I'd feel then. When I took that simple step, I noticed I had some very strong feelings and so I wrote them out. (Since Richard has a business here, it might be somewhat more difficult for him to write publicly about such a reaction, if he had one.)

I know you had NO intention at all of harm and were only trying to think about constructive ideas to suggest. So I don't mean to suggest, in any way at all, that there was anything about your comments other than trying to be as helpful as you could.

I know. But entering into such hidden relationships carries with it a certain risk, too, in terms of outside perceptions. At a minimum. And I don't much like the sound of the words you had to write above to remain accurate and honest with us.

It would be better if all relationships ARM has are publicly available and readable. I don't mean *before* they are entered into, as that may be a critical negotiation period where the need for secrecy makes sense. But after the fact, yes. Everything above board and in the clear. That would help a great deal when others must make and risk their own situations in aligning themselves with some initiative they want to promote.

Totally understood! I empathize that you had no inclination that I might write what I did in response to an otherwise "helpful" comment to Richard and now things rapidly spinning in a difficult direction.

That's a given, of course. Who wouldn't? The question arises whether or not the _right_ decisions are being made, in practice. And there, people can disagree.

Another possible tip for Richard, I suppose. I've a hunch it's not going to open doors for Richard, though, that he hasn't already knocked on.

It seems to me that this is great for people (like me) who would consider the idea of using a product after it is released. But of course, this will be of little help to people like Richard who need to be out "priming the pump" a little, before the rest of us start looking for a compiler tool. If he doesn't have it ready when I'm looking, and I buy someone else's tool and invest my time in that, then he has forever lost out on the opportunity. Bad news.

I'm sorry I felt the inclination to write further. But I did. However, I fully understand why it makes little sense for you to pursue this line here. I might exactly the same thing in your shoes and I don't expect a reply -- nor should you provide one.

And not here? Aren't those people in comp.sys.arm doing embedded work? Have they no presence here?

My own 'resonances' began only because I wanted you to see and feel how your last suggestion might have come across, if you put yourself into the seat of someone who is putting their money where their mouth is at. I've been self-employed most of my adult life and have had to worry about these kinds of things and there never is a day that goes by that you aren't continually aware of the details of that business. If you forget it, you find yourself looking for employment fast.

There is NO question at all in my mind that Richard wouldn't have even bothered asking in the first place, if there wasn't already very good reason for ARM to provide him with the information. It's not like Richard is some no-account, wanna-be with no track record to look at.

If I were him, I might take it kind of personal. But perhaps that's just me.

Jon

Yes you are, you could go up some floors to the Press contacts department and inform them that Richard needs the information. You could try to find out who the local ARM representative is and make a personal phone call and convince them that it is in ARMs, best interest that they release the information to Richard. If you have no clout in ARM, then you might find some reasonable fellow with some clout, convince him/her and let them do the job.

--
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

[snip all for brevity :-) ]

Thanks Jonanthan and Ulf for your support and thanks Joseph for the info. First of all, as a general statement, we small 3rd party vendors get all sorts of responses from silicon manufacturers. For example, we have good experience with Atmel and their product mixes are good for our target audience so we try to support them as much as possible. I can't say that for everyone else. Some vendors practically treat us like a disease :-)

As for Cortex/Thumb-2 information in particular, I inquired the ARM 3rd party vendor relation a few months ago, after I found out about Thumb-2 in the ARM conference, but no reply on how I can even get such an NDA or NDAs. Some ARM marketing guy also responded to my request form I filled out in the conference and I asked for the NDA but never gotten a reply from him either.

As for why we would want such information. Obviously if no silicon manufacturers jump on the bandwagon, then no, we won't be interested :-). Fundamentally though, it takes at least 6 months to get a new compiler out, and the more advance information we have, the better we can plan. It's a constantly changing market place and as a business person, supporting a new target is a big risk for us. I wish I can say I am betting 100% but I have not. I understand ARM Inc. wishes to protect its IP in terms of patent applications and such, but I can't say I am not frustrated either.

The ARM compiler is a big gamble for us. Notice that the existing vendors: Greenhills, ARM, IAR, Code Warrior have been in the ARM market for a while, Keil and us are the only vendors writing our own compilers recently. We take a risk of not jumping on the bandwagon on wrapping an IDE on top of GNU for a variety of reasons, and obviously we think we will be successful. We will see how it pan out in the next year. I see a new group of customers going for the ARM7 MCU, so that's our initial audience. We will then move on to support other ARM variants. As business grows, we will continue to improve our code performance and look into the high end applications as well.Anyone can google groups.google.com and see that we started out by selling an HC11 compiler for $39!!! While we are not a "big" embedded compiler powerhouse, we have craved out a nice niche with good customer reputation.. So we are doing pretty OK

--
// richard
http://www.imagecraft.com