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