What is the cheapest ARM available that is REAL?

What is your volume? What are your requirements?

The cheapest ARM that's in production is a licensed core that you drop into your device.

The LPC2101 shows as in stock at Future and Digikey, ~$1.85/500 ?

-jg

Yeah, I think if you are going for raw price, this is the cheapest part by far. The Atmel SAM7S32 is $4 although the S321 which comes in a smaller package should get to $3 and compare to the LPC2103.

You can find a comparison table of many ARM MCUs at my web site at

I just added the TI chips today and will be working on the Atmel parts next. Go to the Resource page and scroll down to the ARM Chips section. Click on the "ARM device comparison chart" link to see the table.

If you find any wrong info, please let me know at gnuarm at arius com.

Opps, I had my Atmel devices backwards. The S32 *is* is the small package version at $4 @ 100 qty. The S321 comes in the same package as the other members in this family, the LQFP64 and will likely be higher than the S32 in price.

rickman wrote:

I probably should add the Analog Device ADuC7022, showing as available, at $3.98 for 32KF/8KR/ and with a 12 bit 1MSPS ADC, UART/SPI duali2c,

4 timers - in a 6mm package. If you need the 12 bit ADC, you can almost call the ARM free :)

-jg

Interesting. I actually have a need for a 1Ms/s 12 bit ADC. By the way, Digikey charges much more for 1000 pc than the Analog Devices site suggests.

Jon

You helped me find a mistake in my ARM comparison chart. I was not aware that some of the ADuC parts have two versions (at least), one with 62 kB of Flash and 8 kB of RAM and another with 32 kB Flash and 4 kB of RAM. The prices quoted on the ADI web page are for the smaller of the two parts. But you *can* get the quoted price at qty 1000 by buying direct from ADI. You can even do that directly on the web page...

I see that Digikey has both B versions and A versions. I don't see the A version referenced in the data sheet from January. It is likely a version with different analog specs. I also don't see it mentioned on the ADI web page for the 7021 or 7022 which show A versions on the Digikey site. I guess this is not the first time the web site or data sheet was not current with shipping product.

Do keep in mind that the smaller of the ADuC parts have only 13 or so digital IO.

Yes, I'd noticed that fact. The packaging includes a 40-pin variety.

Yes, the 40-pin jobs.

I did that, in fact. Got a nice quote of $3,980 for 1000 of them.

Yup.

I noticed that, as well. I'm not terribly fond of 40-pin packages with only 13 I/O, either. So it grated on me to see it.

Jon

Actually I count 15 I/O even though their , and don't forget that they also provide 10 ADC inputs as well as 4 JTAG pins. I think that ADI tried to focus on this part as an analog device rather than as just another ARM MCU. So they don't share the ADC pins with the digital I/O and provide a true reference voltage pin and separate power and ground for every section to maximize isolation and minimize noise.

If you need the 12-bit ADC, the 702x is a bargain. Just figure something out for the digital I/O. If you don't need it, why would you buy an ADC that happens to have SOME microcontrollers features glued to it instead of a device that was designed to be a microcontroller such as the LPC2103, which is fast, has more I/O, more peripherals, much better interrupt controller, fast GPIO AND is cheaper. But as I said it all depends on the need of the 12-bit ADC. Bob