There was a web cast on Techonline talking about new
ARM architecture targeting the MCU market. It only
support the THUMB-2 and not the ARM instruction set.
It will use single-pin (or two pin??) debug wires
instead of full-blown JTAG. Hopefully then we will
have a 28-pin SOIC/SSOP ARM MCU (or 6x6 QFN32). Then
it should be about US$1 to US$2. It will be the end
of PIC/AVR era if the active current is similar.

Of course, the cost of the die does not really matter
here (it is possible Thumb-2 core does not cost too much
more than PIC18F). But the analog features should be 
competitive as well.

Xiaofan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: William "Chops" Westfield [mailto:westfw@mac.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 11:39 AM
> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
> Subject: Re: [EE] Comparisons of cheap Arm based MCUs
> 
> 
> On Feb 27, 2005, at 5:50 PM, Chen Xiao Fan wrote:
> >
> > What are the pros and cons of using ARM based MCU or other
> > high-end 8-bit MCUs in the similar price range?
> >
> I am waiting with some interest to see whether anyone will put an
> arm chip into a low-pin-count package like DIP, PLCC, or SOIC.
> It could be done now with the same die used in the TQFP64
> packages, just wasting half the pins or so (in theory, they're
> heap enough.)
> 
> My theory is that there are applications where the performance
> would be nice, and the architecture suitable, but the ease-of
> handling of the more relaxed packages (and w/ sockets!) would be
> nice.  Whether there are ENOUGH of these to justify someone actually
> producing such a package is a separate question.
> 
> Maybe for the educational market?  I'm not sure how a processor
> is supposed to gain student mindshare without being usable in a
> prototype environment, but perhaps it is cheap enough for the
> vendors to arrange to have the TQFPs mounted on little prototyping
> boards (like cypress's rather neat PSoC board/chip used in the
> recent CCinc contest...)
> 
> BillW
> -- 

> 
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