Atmel has a press release out for an ARM9 product line that includes on chip Flash. I have looked at their web site and I don't see anything about this other than the press release. At the bottom of the release they refer to the SAM9260 on their web site, but this part has no on chip Flash. Is this the 0 kB version of a family with Flash? Or are they no where near silicon on the part they are touting and they are doing a bait and switch?
This press release is already two months old. I would expect to have heard something more concrete by now.
if Atmel really has a flash based ARM 9 from the SAM9xxx series I missed it (and I am really watching these topics). They announced a SAM9260 which is manufactured in a more advance technology and to my surprise a SAM9261 with a better peripheral set in an older technology. The 9261 has Ethernet, the SAM9260 does not. On the other hand, the SRAM on the SAM9261 is pretty much negligable, resulting in a fast core with slow memory access and a smallest possible cache does not really improve this situation. Nevertheless the 9261 would be my preference out of these two. Unfortunately neither one has flash and if you find a press release that talks about a SAM9 with flash, please post the link to it.
They don't name names or more importantly part numbers. I don't know if this is a fishing expedition or if it is still just too early. I seem to recall a vendor telling us that this was in th pipe, but I don't recall how long the pipe is.
Notice the FLASH mention is restricted to a single html page, and that the timing of this press release relates closely to the ST release of their Flash ST9's : Looks to me like someone in Atmel marketing thought that putting the words Flash and ARM9 in one press release, was all they needed to do to claim "industry's first family"....
The Atmel web product guide also says nothing, and that has release schedules for some devices into 2007....
.. so, don't hold your breath :)
Also, what about FLASH AVR32's .... ?
I'm waiting for some concrete data on the Zilog ZNEO - that's almost the opposite rollout : Programmer vendors have support, it shows up on Mouser and now Digikey, as part numbers with stock on order, but still no data sheets released.... Does seem to have Automotive temp spec variants.
Some customers already have SAM9260 rev B chips. The performance of the SAM AT91SAM9263 has some other goodies like CAN controller, dual bus , 2D accelerator etc... Should be available later this year.
They are all optimized for Linux/WinCE applications. You may want to note that the bandwidth of a 60 MHz ARM7 tops out at 240 MB/s and is shared with the data access. The bandwidth of the tightly coupled SRAMs of the AT91SAM9261 is 800 MB/s and since you have two ports, you have 1600 MB/s.
Should be able to run 3-5 times faster with the SAM9261 than with any ARM7 if you accept booting from a sub $1 serial flash. With 160 kB of SRAM this is equivalent to 128 kB Flash + 32 kB SRAM. The MMU allows this to be expanded by paging non critical routines.
Not so sure "unfortunately" is the right word ;-)
--
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
This is intended to be my personal opinion which may,
or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB
You wouldn't happen to know anything about the SAM7L series, is there something special about the "Ultra Low Power" title, or is it just a normal SAM7 with an LCD controller?
"steve" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
Among other things, it will run from a low voltage supply. The current devices have a minimum voltage of 3.0V. There are a lot of other things which cannot be revealed at this point.
--
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
This is intended to be my personal opinion which may,
or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB
Yes, but the AVR32 doesn't seem to be a 32 bit version of the 8 bit AVR we all know and love, it's seems to be some type of customized chip made for a large customer now offered to the public.
The mega103 started life as a custom chip and now it's spawned the mega2560, which is really useful, apart from the rather clunky RAMPZ paging register. Just wait a few years and see where the AVR32 goes. Of course, by the time it get to be useful, I'll probably be far too old to be able to make sense of it >:-}
"Eric" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
I think that if you have read Atmels public statements on the AVR32 you will find that the AVR32 is designed to be a general purpose controller with media functionality. Some of the media functionality is in the instruction set and some is in a coprocessor (which might or might not be present in any new chip). The AVR32 is basically available to all groups within Atmel that want to use the core, and when it is time to release information about new chips, I am sure there will be a formal press release.
It has basically the same peripherals as the AT91SAM9 series, which are considered to be general purpose controllers. If it happens to have the right match of peripheral, then you need to compare the price with other parts with sufficient functionality. If it then has the lowest price, you go for it, otherwise you go for something else.
Some key things which are not (yet) present in AT91:
Combined Ethernet + LCD control USB High Speed client. AC-97 DMA
The NEXUS Calls 3+ debug is superior to the JTAG of the ARM.
If you look at support, then gcc and linux + file system is directly supported by Atmel for the AVR32. For the AT91, you can either go to maxim.org.za/AT91RM9200/2.6 or to Timesys.
There are AT91 features which are not matched by the AP7000 chips. The new AT91SAM9260, (just got my first samples and dev boards shipping this week :-) will surely be lower cost than any of the AP7000 chips. The SAM9261 has a huge SRAM. The boot ROM is getting better and better (most of my request for new functionality was introduced in the SAM9260 bootROM)
- no bootROM in the AP7000 so I am pestering the guys constantly!!
In the end some will select ARM because they want ARM and other will go for best chip to meet their needs and then the AVR32 can compete.
One of the nice advantage of the Atmel Norway design centre is that they are hungry and are open to any idea that will improve their offering. They are not afraid to acknowledge weaknesses (internally), and will put a lot of effort into fixing stuff. Just look at the Picopower. Think they derve a lot of credit for that development.
--
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
This is intended to be my personal opinion which may,
or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB
Please try to keep your line lengths under 72. 65 is better.
-- "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." -- W. Churchill, Nov 21, 1943
you are absolutely correct, I described the 9261 when I was talking about the 9260 and vice versa. Haven't heard about the 9263 yet. Sounds good except for the package BGA 324?
Also, is the build in support for booting from serial, I guess SPI Flash?
An Schwob.
Ulf Samuelss> "An Schwob in the USA" skrev i meddelandet
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