Author Topic: Atmel is now Microchip ???  (Read 15787 times)

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Offline richardman

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #25 on: May 21, 2016, 04:19:07 am »
I have no inside information. I suspect all the Atmel branded hardware and software release will continue, but with less emphasis on new products or new features over time. There is no incentives to add AVR support to MPLAB, or mix-n-match AVR and PIC features. What they do have is that they can offer either PIC or AVR or both to potential customers, without the sales competing.
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Offline fcb

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #26 on: May 21, 2016, 09:08:29 am »
I've used Microchips PIC's (all families except PIC32 and 14xx series) for the last 25 years - so many times I've heard people claim there doomed, yet here we are...

I just can't see it as a long-term negative for Atme, Microchip are a pretty safe pair of hands.

If you want to see something disruptive, you should see: http://www.gigadevice.com/  I've heard the pricing is scarily cheap.
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Offline hans

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #27 on: May 21, 2016, 09:44:33 am »
Mergers are mostly guided by revenue opportunities rather than common sense in terms of technical products. Been there, seen it happen in other markets.

I think it's very unfortunate too Microchip has not tried harder with their PIC24. It's a very nice answer to the shortcomings of their 8-bit chips. However the 16-bit MCU market hasn't really been growing for ages now. If you look at percentages of revenue, the 16-bit market is actually shrinking. Does it make sense to invest more into 16-bit? Nope. Their investors probably want MCP see investing in "upcoming markets".

Microchip has got their 8-bit covered from a business point of view. They announced a little while back very proudly they have the biggest revenue of the 8-bit market. How can that happen if you read the amount of bitching on their 8-bit architecture? It probably all has to do with "bolt on" peripherals, pricing and availability. Have you tried to buy some AVR chips in any quantity? They are very expensive .. any PIC and most MSP430 or modern ARM will beat that.

So it makes sense that Microchip acquired Atmel because of their ARM offerings. Atmel ARM listings far exceeds what type of AVR chip you can get. Atmel has Cortex A5 or ARM926 chips that run some flavor of Linux, back down to cortex m0+ for IoT and whatnot.

The trend is already that 32-bit is the new 8-bit, so suppose this solidifies completely in the upcoming (let's say) 10 years it makes sense they really needed to strengthen their 32-bit portfolio. Because although I can personally appreciate PIC32MX having worked with them a few years back, out-sight is slightly different:

- Microchip misses all the love ARM gets. I appreciate the PIC32 and MIPS4K in it self though but honestly it's not enough to be convincing.
ARM wins IMHO on all aspects of development and firmware parts now, offering more alternative toolchains (from free mbed cloud to IAR/KEIL with trace and RTOS inspectors), RTOS's, complexity & options of it's peripherals, etc.
- Full debugger + dev boards + toys for ARM can be had for 20$. If you just want to evaluate a MCU peripheral it's no big deal to order such board and use it for only 1 hour to figure out if a peripheral will work out for you.
From my point of view, there is no answer from Microchip. Their PIC32MZ EF starter kit is already 100$, that still only gets you a PICKIT3. Although it works, it is outperformed by all onboard debuggers on ARM boards I've seen.
- Energy friendly with PIC32 is impossible.
PIC32MX250: 500uA/MHz, 44uA sleep current.
PIC32MZ EF: 460uA/MHZ, 1.5mA sleep current.
SiLabs Pearl Gecko (48MHz Cortex m4): 60uA/MHz, 2uA sleep current
Most other ARM chips are probably in 100-200uA/MHz range with <10uA sleep currents.
- No PIC32 that can run Linux.
- No PIC32 that can handle SDRAM
- LCD TFT hardware controller with 2D DMA anyone?
- No PIC32 with house-keeping DAC. Only 12-bit house-keeping ADC on their latest PIC32MZ
- PIC32MZ has been a bit of a fail in terms of silicon bugs. Since then ARM Cortex m7 has come out with in general more peripherals, yet higher clock speeds and an even faster instruction pipeline (up to 2IPC)

PIC32 still applies for many other applications (not everyone will jump straight into a Linux project with LCD TFT and SDRAM, or ultra-low power IoT wireless nodes), but I can see how Atmel chips would fill huge gaps in Microchip's 32-bit offering.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2016, 09:48:13 am by hans »
 

Offline SteveyG

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #28 on: May 21, 2016, 09:44:33 am »
PIC just ate its main competition, and while I'd like to see esp the 8bit line canceled, it's got years left in it now.

The 8 bit MCUs are still essential products. They get used in everything low cost and small, e.g. pregnancy testers and other medical electronic assay readers, toothbrushes etc. The volume price for these is untouchable by anything other than the Chinese 8051 MCUs. There's no way they're going away, but obviously they are of little use to hobbyists. Your comment is very short sighted though.
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Offline uncle_bob

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #29 on: May 21, 2016, 12:26:15 pm »

- Energy friendly with PIC32 is impossible.
PIC32MX250: 500uA/MHz, 44uA sleep current.
PIC32MZ EF: 460uA/MHZ, 1.5mA sleep current.
SiLabs Pearl Gecko (48MHz Cortex m4): 60uA/MHz, 2uA sleep current
Most other ARM chips are probably in 100-200uA/MHz range with <10uA sleep currents.
- No PIC32 that can run Linux.
- No PIC32 that can handle SDRAM
- LCD TFT hardware controller with 2D DMA anyone?
- No PIC32 with house-keeping DAC. Only 12-bit house-keeping ADC on their latest PIC32MZ
- PIC32MZ has been a bit of a fail in terms of silicon bugs. Since then ARM Cortex m7 has come out with in general more peripherals, yet higher clock speeds and an even faster instruction pipeline (up to 2IPC)

PIC32 still applies for many other applications (not everyone will jump straight into a Linux project with LCD TFT and SDRAM, or ultra-low power IoT wireless nodes), but I can see how Atmel chips would fill huge gaps in Microchip's 32-bit offering.

Hi

Some of the ARM stuff will get into the nano amp range (yes its hundreds not single digits) for deep sleep current. They also go from deep sleep to full up high speed operation very quickly. While it's a bit counter intuitive, the "sleep almost all the time / go monster fast to do things" approach actually gives you very impressive battery life. Yes, it's a gimmick for a specific niche. Not everybody needs to run a 32 bit MCU off of a coin cell for a month. It is yet another example of  how hard it is to cover all the bases with one line of parts.

Bob
 

Offline hans

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #30 on: May 21, 2016, 01:12:10 pm »
Yep, this is why I referred to the EFM32 series :) The current I mentioned is not even the deepest mode (EM4 is, that is in the <0.1uA range), but rather I referred to a mode that is practical. Like a WDT or RTC that will wake the CPU at a deterministic point for processing or measuring, and then go back to sleep.

The EFM32 are quite quick from EM2/EM3 to run (2us), but some PIC24 are also quite fast (5us). So in that sense the more energy efficient 32-bit ARM core is the primary appeal.

"sleep long & run fast" is true, most MCU's have rather large bias currents to keep oscillator blocks functional. The lowest uA/MHz figures are reached at the highest MHz, because of the bias currents from various components like oscillators which are non-linear with frequency. Say a 4MHz oscillator requires 200uA bias current, that's a lot if the rest of the CPU only needs 4x100=400uA.

And yes indeed, it's a niche application that recently has drawing my attention again. But it's a completely different application than say automotive, which benefits from a good CAN bus controller, serial UART, a fast CPU to run CAN protocols and a decent PWM or bus peripherals.
 

Offline splin

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #31 on: May 21, 2016, 11:33:57 pm »
Energy friendly with PIC32 is impossible.
PIC32MX250: 500uA/MHz, 44uA sleep current.
PIC32MZ EF: 460uA/MHZ, 1.5mA sleep current.
SiLabs Pearl Gecko (48MHz Cortex m4): 60uA/MHz, 2uA sleep current
Most other ARM chips are probably in 100-200uA/MHz range with <10uA sleep currents.

That Gecko headline 60uA/MHz is actually a bit of a cheat as the best value they actually specify in the datasheet is 63uA/MHz from 3.3V using the DC-DC convertor. Without it the best figure is 87uA/MHz running prime rising to 112uA/MHz running coremark which is still pretty respectable (but not quite as good as the STM32L4). You could get that down to < 1uA/MHz running from a 300V supply with a suitable convertor!

For low power though Ambiq Micro's 30uA/MHz (24MHz Cortex M4F) can't be beat - but I don't know when they will be available to most of us.

 
 

Offline dannyf

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #32 on: May 22, 2016, 09:49:15 pm »
Quote
There's no way they're going away,

In the same way that the mc14500 is still alive and well today, :)

I think it is likely that 8-bit mcus will be around for a long time. At the same time, it is difficult to make a case that it will be as vibrant of a business in the future as it has been. All you need to do is to look at new designs and see which chips are being picked for those new designs - Microchip itself has a very survey on that where they proudly presented a bright picture for their MCUs without understanding what a doomy story it told of their own future, :)

edit: here is the presentation I was talking about: http://www.microchip.com/investor/Pressrelease/MCHP%20Investor%20Presentation.060313.pdf

Take a look at Page 16. If you are a Microchip investor and that page doesn't get you to shit in your pants, well, get a new pair of pants, :)
« Last Edit: May 23, 2016, 12:14:28 am by dannyf »
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Offline uncle_bob

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #33 on: May 22, 2016, 11:47:51 pm »
Quote
There's no way they're going away,

In the same way that the mc14500 is still alive and well today, :)

I think it is likely that 8-bit mcus will be around for a long time. At the same time, it is difficult to make a case that it will be as vibrant of a business in the future as it has been. All you need to do is to look at new designs and see which chips are being picked for those new designs - Microchip itself has a very survey on that where they proudly presented a bright picture for their MCUs without understanding what a doomy story it told of their own future, :)

Hi

The 8 bit MCU has a wonderful future making up a reasonable fraction of the 120 MCU's in the driver's seat of some cars (yes that's a real number). For hobby use or things like that ... don't count on it. The 16 bit world is dead at most places that once did 16 bits. The "rest of the world" has moved up to 64 bits and looks at 32 bits as "yesterday's news". In those applications where a 17 cent MCU at a million pieces is what (barely) does the job, they won't go for the 22 cent solution. Five years from now, once you get past 50 cents, no more 8 bit, no more 16 bit in new designs. Scale that down from the millions however you wish.

Bob

Bob
 
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Offline andersm

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #34 on: May 23, 2016, 04:40:58 am »
- No PIC32 that can run Linux.
- No PIC32 that can handle SDRAM
- LCD TFT hardware controller with 2D DMA anyone?
Yet, though even once the PIC32MZ DA is released I can't really see why anyone'd use it unless they're committed to using Microchip products exclusively, and even then there's now the SAMA5 series to choose from.
 
Quote
- PIC32MZ has been a bit of a fail in terms of silicon bugs. Since then ARM Cortex m7 has come out with in general more peripherals, yet higher clock speeds and an even faster instruction pipeline (up to 2IPC)
The PIC32MZ EF fixed a lot of the issues and added an FPU, but the delays definitely ruined any advantage they had over the competition.

Offline hans

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #35 on: May 23, 2016, 09:50:50 am »
Energy friendly with PIC32 is impossible.
PIC32MX250: 500uA/MHz, 44uA sleep current.
PIC32MZ EF: 460uA/MHZ, 1.5mA sleep current.
SiLabs Pearl Gecko (48MHz Cortex m4): 60uA/MHz, 2uA sleep current
Most other ARM chips are probably in 100-200uA/MHz range with <10uA sleep currents.

That Gecko headline 60uA/MHz is actually a bit of a cheat as the best value they actually specify in the datasheet is 63uA/MHz from 3.3V using the DC-DC convertor. Without it the best figure is 87uA/MHz running prime rising to 112uA/MHz running coremark which is still pretty respectable (but not quite as good as the STM32L4). You could get that down to < 1uA/MHz running from a 300V supply with a suitable convertor!

For low power though Ambiq Micro's 30uA/MHz (24MHz Cortex M4F) can't be beat - but I don't know when they will be available to most of us.

Oh Yes I remember seeing that. In that sense the uA/MHz is a bit disillusional because it's only valid at 3V VDD, making the uA/MHz figure less meaningful.
STM32L4 is also quite nice, but a very expensive chip if all you need is 1-2 communication busses, a 16MHz CPU load application, and 64KB FLASH/16KB RAM.

- No PIC32 that can run Linux.
- No PIC32 that can handle SDRAM
- LCD TFT hardware controller with 2D DMA anyone?
Yet, though even once the PIC32MZ DA is released I can't really see why anyone'd use it unless they're committed to using Microchip products exclusively, and even then there's now the SAMA5 series to choose from.
 
Quote
- PIC32MZ has been a bit of a fail in terms of silicon bugs. Since then ARM Cortex m7 has come out with in general more peripherals, yet higher clock speeds and an even faster instruction pipeline (up to 2IPC)
The PIC32MZ EF fixed a lot of the issues and added an FPU, but the delays definitely ruined any advantage they had over the competition.

Seems like the DA is the chip I was missing out on :) Interesting. But it would have a lot of catching up to do with ARM, which has dominated the tablet, smartphone and embedded computer boards for years now. The fact you can download Debian desktop OS straight for ARM shows that.

200MHz MIPS CPU and 128MB DDR2 sounds a little outdated though to be running a Linux in 2016. Same for the PIC32MZ EF. Timing is horrid in my opinion, they should have released this chip in 2012 IMHO.

I suppose a winner could be the price point, power consumption and design resources.
 

Offline uncle_bob

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #36 on: May 23, 2016, 12:28:28 pm »


Seems like the DA is the chip I was missing out on :) Interesting. But it would have a lot of catching up to do with ARM, which has dominated the tablet, smartphone and embedded computer boards for years now. The fact you can download Debian desktop OS straight for ARM shows that.

200MHz MIPS CPU and 128MB DDR2 sounds a little outdated though to be running a Linux in 2016. Same for the PIC32MZ EF. Timing is horrid in my opinion, they should have released this chip in 2012 IMHO.

I suppose a winner could be the price point, power consumption and design resources.

Hi

For a while the 8 and 16 bit chips did have a cost advantage. It's not real clear how long the PIC32 held an advantage over ARM. The price point at which the crossover occurred dropped year after year. When it hit $10 nobody at Microchip probably even noticed. When it hit $5 they probably did start to notice. As it crossed $1 you can be very sure they were paying a lot of attention.

Power wise, there are a *lot* of ARM designs from a lot of outfits that do really well. It's not a "one company only" sort of thing. If you don't find what you want / need / like from company S you can look at company F (or N) or company T or company B or ... lots of choices. It's all the same CPU and mostly the same learning experience.

Tool chain wise, yes there are differences in the free toolchains. Some are better than others. For real money you can buy commercial tool chains from many different outfits. To one extent or the other the commercial stuff makes moving from one vendor to the other relatively transparent. None of it takes care of the fiddly drivers for non-standard devices without some tweaking.

Bob
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #37 on: May 24, 2016, 12:59:44 pm »
If you want to hear something extreme:
Microchip is now into Cortex M4:
http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/en/CEC1302
 :-DD It is hidden on their website, impossible to find.
 

Offline Wilksey

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #38 on: May 24, 2016, 04:01:43 pm »
It's not hidden that well!

Products -> Embedded Controllers and Super I/O-> Embedded and Keyboard Controllers
http://www.microchip.com/design-centers/embedded-controllers-and-super-i-o/products/embedded-and-keyboard-controllers

It is a bit suspect though
 

Offline andersm

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #39 on: May 24, 2016, 04:27:06 pm »
Can't remember where the CECxx series were discussed recently, but someone suggested that it originated from SMSC or some other recent Microchip acquisition. Just last year Microchip released the MIPS M14K-based MEC14xx series which has almost the same functionality, and this kind of product overlap would be surprising if it were by design.

Online JPortici

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #40 on: May 24, 2016, 06:23:56 pm »
why does nobody bother to check dates  :palm:
yes it was already discussed a month ago or so in a simillar topic.. and again a lot of time ago when this part came out
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #41 on: June 30, 2016, 12:12:28 pm »
First rimples in the water.
The AVR micro's are getting more expensive and AVR support teams are dismantled.  :(
 

Offline asgard20032

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #42 on: June 30, 2016, 01:17:53 pm »
Do you have anything to support your statement?
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #43 on: June 30, 2016, 03:39:28 pm »
no I can't, just telling what I heard from recent negotiations.
 

Online JPortici

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #44 on: June 30, 2016, 04:16:07 pm »
a quick look on octopart and i see that prices are not higher than 1 year ago
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #45 on: June 30, 2016, 05:38:49 pm »
End user prices may be the same, the contract large number prices are changing. That's all I am saying and that is already too much  ;)
 

Online JPortici

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #46 on: June 30, 2016, 05:52:13 pm »
ooh, can't in that sense

use a dspic already  >:D
 

Offline rfleming

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #47 on: July 01, 2016, 01:30:29 am »
I have only really worked with Atmel micro's at my current company and have become a rather big fan despite not really have any experience with MicroChip's devices. It's easy to jump on the PIC hating band wagon and many of your complaints might be valid.

But consider this. Atmel was not really making any profit for the last few years. MicroChip was. Thus as a business model Atmel was doing something wrong. Whether that was making all their tools free or making their micro's quite cheap, it is arguable. All that can be said is that something needed to change and something PIC was doing was right.

Microchip purchasing Atmel could be the best thing that could happen it is approached correctly. But obviously the hardware or software will increase in price at some point.
 

Offline westfw

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #48 on: July 01, 2016, 03:16:39 am »
Quote
the contract large number prices are changing.
We shall see.  IMO, Atmel chip prices have never been particularly stable. :-(
 

Offline uncle_bob

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Re: Atmel is now Microchip ???
« Reply #49 on: July 01, 2016, 03:22:40 am »
Quote
the contract large number prices are changing.
We shall see.  IMO, Atmel chip prices have never been particularly stable. :-(

Hi

The MBA term is "harvest mode". You chop the R&D, jack up the prices, and make money off of those who are stuck using the parts. Does that apply here. Indeed, only time will tell.

Bob
 


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