Which is the most popular ARM-based microcontroller?

It's impossible to answer this. ARM cores are used in ASICs and ASSPs all over the place. Modern USB flash memory drives - those little pocket gumstick drives - even use ARM processors, and they are made by the boatload. How many cellphones are there on the market? ARM is very popular inside cellphone ASSPs. How many MP3 players on the market? ARM is exceedingly popular inside MP3 player ASSPs.

No two of these devices use the same chip.

Okay...Lets put it this way..which ARM-based microcontroller is the easiest to work with, the criterea for "easy" range from the way to access internal components, example code availability, and the existance of user groups etc.

-Mayank

The market is too fragmented to make a sensible determination here. I'd probably say Philips chips have the best hobbyist visibility as individual chips, but that doesn't really mean anything. XScale is used in a lot more hobbyist projects, but not as chips; people buy modules.

Probably the Philips LPC2000 family. The LPC2000 Yahoo group I formed is very active (1300+ members) and has lots of code and hardware designs available. Philips themselves recommend it to customers. 8-)

Leon

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Leon Heller, G1HSM
http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller

Maybe Philips LPC2000 or Atmel AT91.

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Tauno Voipio
tauno voipio (at) iki fi

Hi Mayank,

based on the interest in the family, it is probably the LPC2000 from Philips (links for the Yahoo froum have already been posted. There are forums for the Atmel SAM7, the OKI and some others as well but Philips was the first to come out with a real simple ARM microcontroller. Atmel had big ARM devices for a long time but they are not as popular as the small single chip devices. So if you need an ARM with lots of external memory, have a look at Atmel, OKI, Samsung, Sharp, etc.. If you want a single chip version, Philips offers the best selection of small devices with 48 and 64-pins.

An Schwob

Mayank Kaushik wrote:

It would be interesting to know how You measure this.

There are plenty of customers which are using the AT91 microprocessors, but most of those customers do not use newsgroups and does not use Yahoo. The download the AT91 CD which has plenty of examples or frequent other distribution lists like the arm-linux kernel list. Many I meet get those lists, but seldom make an entry.

From a market point of view, single chip micros always have higher volume than the external bus micros, so I expect the volume for the SAM7 to grow nicely.

I think it would be interesting to measure how many will switch from the SAM7 to the Philips and how many will switch in the other direction.

The AT91SAM7 is just about to enter production but we have already stolen quite a few Philips designs.

If you look at a matrix of part you will notice that Philips has more devices but the range of Atmel flash parts is wider.

48 PIN PARTs

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32kB AT91SAM7S32 64 kB 128 kB LPC2104/5/6

64 PIN PARTS

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32kB LPC2131* 64kB AT91SAM7S64 LPC2132* 128kB AT91SAM7S128 LPC2114 256kB AT91SAM7S256 LPC2124 512kB AT91SAM7S512* LPC2138*

64 PIN PARTS WITH 2 X CAN

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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128kB LPC2119 256kB LPC2129

64 PIN PARTS WITH 2 X CAN

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256kB LPC2194

'*' not available yet, LPC213x is close though if I understand things correctly.

100 PIN PARTS WITH 2 X CAN

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256kB AT91SAM7A3

SMALLEST PART - TQFP48 LOWEST COST Atmels smallest part is a 48 pin part with 32 kB Flash and 8 kB SRAM Philips smallest part is a 48 pin device with 32 kB part and 16 kB SRAM Atmel should win round for lowest cost

SMALLEST PART - TQFP48 MOST MEMORY Atmel has the AT91SAM7S32 with 32 kB + 8 kB SRAM Philips has the 128 kB LPC210x family - This is a 128 kB with 16/32/64kB SRAM Philips wins the round.

SMALLEST PART - TQFP48 Analog Atmel has the AT91SAM7S32 with ADC Philips 48 pin parts do not have ADC onboard Atmel wins the round

LARGEST PART FLASH MEMORY Atmels largest part in 64 TQFP is 256 kB Flash with 64 kB SRAM (AT91SAM7S256) Atmels pincompatible AT91SAM7S512 is some time away. but also have BGA with 512kb/2 MB Flash and 256 kB SRAM. This is a dual chip package and does not have so many features though Philips largest announced part is LPC2138 w 512kB Flash and 16 kB Atmel wins the round if BGA is acceptable, otherwise Philips (when available)

LARGEST PART SRAM MEMORY Atmels largest part in 64 TQFP is 256 kB Flash with 64 kB SRAM (AT91SAM7S256) Philips has a single part with 64 kB SRAM and this has 128 kB Flash The larger parts have less memory. Even the LPC2138 w 512kB Flash has 32 kB It is even for 32 kB/64kB Flash Philips wins the 128 kB Flash Atmel wins the 256 kB Flash

PERFORMANCE Philips has an 128 but wide flash bus running at 20 MHz Atmel has a 32 bit wide flash bus running at 30 Mhz Philips has higher performance in ARM mode Atmel has higher performance in Thumb Mode If you really need the performance, the AT91RM3400 will outperform the LPC by executing from its 96 kB SRAM at zero waitstates. This will need an external SO-8 dataflash If you can afford the 30-40% increase in code size incurred by the ARM mode then Philips is your choice. If not, go for Atmel. If you accept external memories, the peripherals of the AT91SAM7s series (except the analog) is available in the AT91RM9200 at 200 MIPS.

I/O Atmel has a 100 pin TQFP series single chip. Philips soes not have a 100 pin single chipper.

PERIPHERALS Atmel peripherals are generally more advanced, coming from ARM9 chips. This means they can handle more complex problems

--
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

I, for one, would never use a Philips, since it has no memory protection scheme.

Meindert

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kB

need

mode

Their selector guides show memory protection on newer models.

..and there are ARM uC devices from TI : MSP470 series, advanced timer support, 80/100 pins ADi : ADuC7xxx : Advanced Analog Modules STm : STR7 family

... and if a 30-50MHz ARM core, with 32-512K of Code, and 64KRAM is too wimpy for your embedded widget, you can always pop in the new TC1796 TriCore from Infineon : 150 MHz DSP/FPU, 2MBytes/ECC FLASH, 192KB SRAM, Automotive Spec, - includes a 32 bit Co-processor for interrupt/DMA style tasks...

-jg

I suppose they just had to, to hold their market share... :-)

Meindert

Meindert,

seems you looked at Philips the last time 18 months ago when the very first LPC2104/05/06 became available (more than one year ahead of any other small ARM device!!). Point well taken, the LPC210x don't have code protection, however, the flash devices (>10) all do. Let's call it an oversight of the pioneers with the face in the dust.

As to the availability, somebody marked the devices of the LPC2130-series not available that have been acknowledged in the LPC2000 newsgroup being available for almost 3 months. LPC2138, LPC2132 and LPC2131. afaik the LPC2134 and LPC2136 are not released to the market yet but given pin compatibility with the LPC2138, everybody can start the design.

Atmels SAM7 has claimed to have better peripherals, it seems there has been some oversight to provide enough pins to get them out. Comparing the 64-pin devices gives me almost 10 extra I/O pins on the Philips devices. There is a point though in making the JTAG pins dedicated but, who ever uses Philips has that option, who uses Atmel does not have the option to use the JTAG pins as I/O.

Last but not least the measure about the most popular ARM devices? How many people (not volume) are using the device and are willing to share their wisdom. That is my measure. So the AVR from Atmel is very popular (e.g. in the newsgroups / Yahoo forums), so is the Microchip PIC but talking about ARM devices, my bet is on the LPC2000 family.

Talking about high volume delivery into the market, TI delivered double digit million parts into ABS but are their devices very popular (yet)? Many high volume designers use the ARM7 (and now ARM9) for ASICs in hand-helds but does that make the devices popular?

A Yahoo forum with more than 1300 members and more than 500 on topic messages a month, that makes a device popular.

That is just my personal opinon.

Me> > I think it would be interesting to measure how many will switch

from

direction.

protection

stolen

at

version,

more

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

LPC2131*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

LPC2119

LPC2129

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

LPC2194

things

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

SRAM

SRAM

16/32/64kB

though

has 32

will

ARM

MIPS.

chips.

I indeed wasn't aware of the newer types. I'll look into these, thanks.

Meindert

My mistake, the timing was actually referring to the LPC214x. Realized that after sending the entry.

The addition of the on chip voltage regulator is a key feature which cost some pins.

So I wonder how the 250+ projects for the AT91 in my tiny little region (which normally consist of 5% of the total world market) compares to that. Very few (< 10%) use newsgroups, and only a couple use Yahoo.

Based on experience, I know also that there are probably plenty of projects which that I dont even know about.

If this is replicated worldwide, then there is 5000 projects. Does that make the AT91 popular or not?

The fact that a newsgroup does not have so many entries does not neccessarily make the chip unpopular. It does mean that the user community is not organized. It could mean that the local support for the chip is good and that newsgroups is not needed.

I think you mistake activity on newsgroups for popularity or you define popularity as activity on newsgroups instead of number of people actually using the chips.

I also hear comments from distributors about which is part sells best and comments from tool vendors, which ARM part their customers use and that is positive (They could of course be lying their teeths out ;-)

Which you are entitled to.

Or the ST or the...

Which ever you can find the right peripherals that has a nice dev board and tools.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/\ /\/\/ snipped-for-privacy@phaedsys.org

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