Recommend a microcontroller

[FlyingDutch]

Im thinking if i make a product ( some kind of controller) it wouldnt be that profesional to sell if theres rpi sticked inside... or should i just copy rpi scheme in my pcb and do job like that...

Hello,
you can use some of STM32MP1x MCU. It has three cores: two ARM Cortex-A7 (with clock up to 650 MHz) and one ARM Cortex-M4 real time MCU (clock up to 209MHz). You can run Linux OS on two Cortex-A7 application processors, and real time task on Cortex-M4. There is software library for comunication between Cortex-A7 and Cortex-M4 cores. These series MCUs has also "on-board" DDR3 memory and GPU with OpenGL support (and many multimedia sockets and protocols). For doing develoipment you can use evaluation board from STM, for example such like this:

https://pl.mouser.com/ProductDetail/STMicroelectronics/STM32MP157C-DK2?qs=%2Fha2pyFaduh%2FKELL0HLb%2FPTLHFebxNCrIr4VO2atbb%2FGq6NL0YC5Pg%3D%3D

And for production SOM module with custom PCB board with peripherals. For Example this:

https://somlabs.com/product/visionsom-stm32mp1/

You can use free software tools from STM for development: "STM32CubeMX" (generator of initialization code using HAL or LowLevel Linbraries) and "System Workbench for STM32" (IDE and compiler based on Eclipse projectr). This two tools can act together "CubeMX" is generating project for compiler with initialization code (with graphical GUI wizards).

Link for software are here:
https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stm32cubemx.html

https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/sw4stm32.html

And here is producer page for MCU:

https://www.st.com/en/microcontrollers-microprocessors/stm32mp157.html

When you finish development you can design custom PCB for needed peripherals for SOM module. Product is: SOM module+PCB with peripherals needed in project.

Regards

[GeeBee2020]

Hi, can someone recommend me a microcontroller for project (im currently at rpi 3b+ just for prototyping) that uses ethernet ( UDP for OSC protocol/comunication), midi through USB, around 120 buttons (that i will handle through shift registers 165D, or you have better idea for this amount of buttons) and same number of leds (WS2812, so im just sending data to data in pin of led and it has +5v, gnd pin and data out..) + few slide potentiometers. Thanks in advance. 

Parallax Propeller -- parallax.com

[ag123]

my guess is the problem with Rpi is probably with *pins* there is a 40 pin connector and perhaps about 9 is gnd?
things like the stm32f103 - e.g. blue pill
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&SearchText=stm32f103c8t6
can possibly handle that, if you are into Arduino then the variant/core would be stm32duino official or libmaple core
i think the various avr microcontroller works well too, it doesn't take a lot of speeds to scan keys
either way commercial keyboards 100 keys and more mostly use those little microcontrollers such as an equivalent of that stm32f103 mcu many even smaller and less feature rich than that
and microcontrollers avr, stm32, nxp, ti etc mostly has adc built-in which Rpi doesn't have.

[Jeroen3]

If you're on RPI level, you may as well stay at that level.
There is a new part which, imho, is going to get a big deal in IoT and embedded dense computing world.

The Tibbo PLUS1 (SP7021)
https://tibbo.com/store/plus1.html

Quad-core 1GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, plus ARM A926 and 8051 core.
Only 3.3V power input!

[Sal Ammoniac]

Hi, can someone recommend me a microcontroller for project (im currently at rpi 3b+ just for prototyping) that uses ethernet ( UDP for OSC protocol/comunication), midi through USB, around 120 buttons (that i will handle through shift registers 165D, or you have better idea for this amount of buttons) and same number of leds (WS2812, so im just sending data to data in pin of led and it has +5v, gnd pin and data out..) + few slide potentiometers. Thanks in advance. 

Parallax Propeller -- parallax.com

The Propeller can't do Ethernet. You'd need something like a WIZnet part to support that.

[brucehoult]

If you're on RPI level, you may as well stay at that level.
There is a new part which, imho, is going to get a big deal in IoT and embedded dense computing world.

The Tibbo PLUS1 (SP7021)
https://tibbo.com/store/plus1.html

Quad-core 1GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, plus ARM A926 and 8051 core.
Only 3.3V power input!

8051? Are they insane? What on earth can it do that a Cortex M0 can't do? Except run assembly language software that hasn't been re-written in 35 years. But the people who neeeeeeeeed that would pay $200 a chip just as happily as $20.

I mean .. ok .. it's their money and I'm all in favour of letting it live or die in the market.

[SiliconWizard]

If you're on RPI level, you may as well stay at that level.
There is a new part which, imho, is going to get a big deal in IoT and embedded dense computing world.

The Tibbo PLUS1 (SP7021)
https://tibbo.com/store/plus1.html

Quad-core 1GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, plus ARM A926 and 8051 core.
Only 3.3V power input!

8051? Are they insane? What on earth can it do that a Cortex M0 can't do? Except run assembly language software that hasn't been re-written in 35 years. But the people who neeeeeeeeed that would pay $200 a chip just as happily as $20.

I mean .. ok .. it's their money and I'm all in favour of letting it live or die in the market.

Well, this is odd for sure, but the reason seems pretty obvious... cost. A 8051 core can be added for virtually nothing, whereas an additional Cortex core would have added significant cost. (Well, since they already use 2 ARM cores, they may have gotten 3 for the price of 2, I dunno how ARM works these days... )

As to whether this chip will succeed market-wise, I also have some doubts.

[brucehoult]

If you're on RPI level, you may as well stay at that level.
There is a new part which, imho, is going to get a big deal in IoT and embedded dense computing world.

The Tibbo PLUS1 (SP7021)
https://tibbo.com/store/plus1.html

Quad-core 1GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, plus ARM A926 and 8051 core.
Only 3.3V power input!

8051? Are they insane? What on earth can it do that a Cortex M0 can't do? Except run assembly language software that hasn't been re-written in 35 years. But the people who neeeeeeeeed that would pay $200 a chip just as happily as $20.

I mean .. ok .. it's their money and I'm all in favour of letting it live or die in the market.

Well, this is odd for sure, but the reason seems pretty obvious... cost. A 8051 core can be added for virtually nothing, whereas an additional Cortex core would have added significant cost. (Well, since they already use 2 ARM cores, they may have gotten 3 for the price of 2, I dunno how ARM works these days... )

If they didn't care about using the same ISA throughout, there are plenty of tiny free low performance RISC-V cores you can just grab off github. Ok, not *as* small as an 8051, but also not as low performance. Comparable to a Cortex M0, in fact :-)

[Jeroen3]

I suspect an 8051 over cortex m0 (and aso ancient 926) for money reasons. Maybe surface area as well, I’m not sure.

And 8051 is fine for where you use it for here.

[coppice]

If you're on RPI level, you may as well stay at that level.
There is a new part which, imho, is going to get a big deal in IoT and embedded dense computing world.

The Tibbo PLUS1 (SP7021)
https://tibbo.com/store/plus1.html

Quad-core 1GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, plus ARM A926 and 8051 core.
Only 3.3V power input!

8051? Are they insane? What on earth can it do that a Cortex M0 can't do? Except run assembly language software that hasn't been re-written in 35 years. But the people who neeeeeeeeed that would pay $200 a chip just as happily as $20.

I mean .. ok .. it's their money and I'm all in favour of letting it live or die in the market.

The DRAM content tells you its not a chip, but an MCM. Presumably the available die they could find which gave them the functionality they wanted had an 8051 core. Similarly the ARM 926 must have come with a fairly old die that did what they needed.

[rsjsouza]

ARM926 is used at large for accelerators. It simply does the job it is supposed to do and its licensing is not that expensive.

An 8051 is indeed somewhat strange but I wonder if it uses a very tiny die area on a more modern process. That and the free license. 

[Jeroen3]

As far as I can tell this is the simplest chip on the market that you can run basic linux IoT stack on and have some realtime stuff going on with the 8051/926, all in one single non-bga package with a single supply, and it only needs external flash.

And all you can see is that it has an 8051?

[SiliconWizard]

If they didn't care about using the same ISA throughout, there are plenty of tiny free low performance RISC-V cores you can just grab off github. Ok, not *as* small as an 8051, but also not as low performance. Comparable to a Cortex M0, in fact :-)

Hehe, would probably be much better here, but I bet this would still cost more for them. Implementing a "random" free core on github is not 100% failsafe and takes some work, with potentially no support. They likely had everything ready for the 8051, including possibly the layout (if, as suggested above, it's actually not all cores on the same die...)

And yeah, the 926 is oldish now and probably doesn't cost too much. The expensive part is probably the quad-core Cortex A7. I didn't see the specs of the 926 they used; how fast can it be clocked? It doesn't seem very competitive compared to the associated quad-core A7! (But likely reason to integrate it is for the Linux support I guess?)

Which all in all, makes this chip look like just an opportunistic arrangement rather than innovation.

[brucehoult]

[Which all in all, makes this chip look like just an opportunistic arrangement rather than innovation.

Bearing in mind that for the same $20 or less you can get something like an Orange Pi Nano with the same or more RAM, faster quad core A7s, GPU, WIFI, and actual connectors for the ethernet and USB etc. Or a variety of NanoPi boards too.

[Jeroen3]

Which all in all, makes this chip look like just an opportunistic arrangement rather than innovation.

Do you know of any other competing parts? You can get lots of processors, but they all need external memory and are often only BGA.

[donotdespisethesnake]

As far as I can tell this is the simplest chip on the market that you can run basic linux IoT stack on and have some realtime stuff going on with the 8051/926, all in one single non-bga package with a single supply, and it only needs external flash.

I don't get their sales pitch. There doesn't seem to be any dev board, software support or volume pricing. It looks like they did a one-off special for a customer and thought they would push some units onto the web site and see if anyone nibbles.

Unfortunately I've found with these niche specials they disappear as quickly as they appear, and if you need long product life you can stuck in a hole. A better option is to choose a more general purpose chip that is sold in the bucketloads and will be around for a long time.

[SiliconWizard]

Which all in all, makes this chip look like just an opportunistic arrangement rather than innovation.

Do you know of any other competing parts? You can get lots of processors, but they all need external memory and are often only BGA.

"opportunistic arrangement" didn't mean that it was useless. Integrating RAM is a bonus. The fact it's not BGA will mostly appeal to hobbyists or very small companies with very small volumes, otherwise BGA is not a problem at all these days. Which means that their market if there is any will be pretty limited.