NXP announce ARMs down to 8 pins and $0.39

[mikeselectricstuff]

http://www.nxp.com/news/press-releases/2012/11/nxp-revolutionizes-simplicity-with-lpc800.html

[firewalker]

Nice.

Alexander.

[free_electron]

Cortex is the way to go. it's going tokill off most others.

[andersm]

IIRC it took NXP about a year from announcement to actually releasing the commodity-packaged LPC1100 series, and most models still aren't in stock anywhere. Let's hope they're a bit better about getting the product out there this time around, because the chips really do look very interesting.

[TheDirty]

Peripherals are all revamped and it comes with an internal oscillator.  Looks pretty good.  Really, the internal oscillator thing is what makes me use PICs or MSP430's rather than CM3's or CM0's in my day to day hobby designs.  Putting in a crystal is so inconvenient.

[mrflibble]

Ooooh, neat. Preorder *clickie*

[TheDirty]

I guess Microchips patents for multifunction pins has been revoked then.  I can't find anything on the results, but Microchip sued both Zilog and Luminary Micro (Now Texas Intruments) for a patent they have regarding low pin count microcontrollers and pins sharing GPIO and programming/debug functionality.

[nctnico]

Peripherals are all revamped and it comes with an internal oscillator.  Looks pretty good.  Really, the internal oscillator thing is what makes me use PICs or MSP430's rather than CM3's or CM0's in my day to day hobby designs.  Putting in a crystal is so inconvenient.

All Cortex M0 en M3 parts from NXP have a 1% accurate RC oscillator. Works like a charm.

[andersm]

Peripherals are all revamped and it comes with an internal oscillator.  Looks pretty good.  Really, the internal oscillator thing is what makes me use PICs or MSP430's rather than CM3's or CM0's in my day to day hobby designs.  Putting in a crystal is so inconvenient.

All Cortex M0 en M3 parts from NXP have a 1% accurate RC oscillator. Works like a charm.

ST's parts also have internal RC oscillators with similar accuracy. TI's older parts have terrible 30% accurate oscillators, while their newer ones also have 1% accuracy.

[TheDirty]

All Cortex M0 en M3 parts from NXP have a 1% accurate RC oscillator. Works like a charm.

Right.  Don't know what I was thinking of there.  I've used a lpc11xx once without the crystal before for my datalogger.  Not certain why I figured they were needed again.

[brainwash]

That's great news, more cheap powerful options to choose from.

Just my main gripes with these modules for using them in one-off projects:
- no native 5V or 5V tolerant operation
- no ADC, though it has a comparator
- probably no high-power pins, datasheet lists a nominal current of 3-4mA for I/O pins and 100mA absolute limit for the chip

I thought the whole reason of supplying low pin-count DIP packages was to get away with minimal external components while prototyping.

[Bloch]

[size=78%]- no ADC, though it has a comparator[/size]
- probably no high-power pins, datasheet lists a nominal current of 3-4mA for I/O pins and 100mA absolute limit for the chip

I thought the whole reason of supplying low pin-count DIP packages was to get away with minimal external components while prototyping.

Yes if whey did try ? to compete with microchip. Then they will fail completely.


Thank you for the info. No need to waste my time on a new 8 pin brain 

[bxs]

Crazy, no ADC 

And probably will be very limited to direct interface external stuff (Voltage and amount of Current)

This will help, but far from killing 8Bit 

[nctnico]

Just wait until the final datasheets are on NXP's website. They are problably still designing the chips right now. When they announced the Cortex M3 devices the peripherals they promised are different from what ended up in the chips.

I also wonder why they don't use an SO-8 or MSOP-8 package. That would allow for a real tiny footprint.

[alm]

- no native 5V or 5V tolerant operation

According to the (preliminary) datasheet, all of the pins except /RESET and the VDDCMP pin are 5 V tolerant.

[brainwash]

Well, yes, for input pins, but not for supply voltage which has an absolute maximum of 4.6V. Not sure why they went 90% of the way and stopped there.
Even though the pins support 5V input, you can only get something slightly below Vcc output. It's a moot point anyway, the part was designed with 3V3 interfacing in mind and low currents.

[alm]

I've never seen 5 V tolerant VDD pins. It either supports 5 V VDD or not. In the latter case, the inputs may still be designed to handle inputs up to 5 V, hence being 5 V tolerant. Designing protection structures so the pins work properly with 5 V input voltage is quite different from designing the core to work on 5 V, which would require a different (more expensive / lower density) process.

[nctnico]

Well, yes, for input pins, but not for supply voltage which has an absolute maximum of 4.6V. Not sure why they went 90% of the way and stopped there.
Even though the pins support 5V input, you can only get something slightly below Vcc output. It's a moot point anyway, the part was designed with 3V3 interfacing in mind and low currents.

Just forget about 5V. Its a relic from the 70's  O0 Nowadays many larger designs I work on use 1.8V as the primary digital supply voltage. Most mainstream parts will work on 3.3V so its actually easier to use 3.3V than 5V.

[brainwash]

What I'm trying to say is that for a beginner hobbyist market this chip does not make much sense. LM7833 are pretty hard to find. Not sure how many components in breadboard design one would find at 3.3V. Yes, the ADC and comparator and other integrated stuff are not be meant for professional businesses.
For an advanced hobbyist or industrial market this chip is pretty underpowered.
I know about the 1.8V and even 1.2V, but for those parts I have real EE design engineers doing them, putting along real ADCs, adding JTAG and all the other stuff. And then a layer of embedded SW engineers writing firmware for all the stuff. Then a layer of software/system architects writing the framework. Then a final layer of guys writing the actual functionality of the device.
I'm sure that NXP have done their homework and are able to figure out which market they are addressing, but it does not seem to be chipping away at Microchip's share. I do hope that things will change.

[8086]

LM7833 are pretty hard to find.

There's loads of 3.3v regulators available.

Not sure how many components in breadboard design one would find at 3.3V.

Pretty much everything I breadboard now uses 3.3v supply. I haven't used a 5v supply for anything for years.

[Monkeh]

LM7833 are pretty hard to find.

Because an LM317 is hard to develop 3.3V from.

[FenderBender]

Watch out Microchip and Atmel....

[TheDirty]

On another note, but in the ARM cortex area, I finally switched from my FT2232 based JTAG with SWD adapter to this J-Link clone I got off of e-Bay.
http://www.powermcu.com/product-20.html

With a 20pin JTAG to 1.27 10 pin SWD Olimex adapter:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/JTAG/ARM-JTAG-20-10/

It's working well in SWD mode and it's quick.
I'm using it with Rowley Crossworks, but OpenOCD supports J-Link.

[Mechatrommer]

i really need to push hard my attiny and pic10f stock (50 units each) to market, otherwise i will be doomed.

[T4P]

Freescale's kinetis might sound awesome
I remember recalling unsure who said this but IIRC freescale nearly went bust
And yes, 5V is so 70s ... Use LD1117-3.3 next time