It doesn't have to be an arm, but it requires a significant amount of
computing power - enough power to run voice recognition, for instance.

Lots of nice things about the ARM that don't readily apply to other chips:
Second sources available
Lots of competition = low prices
Lots of industry acceptance = good tools, software
Wide variety (can trade off power, efficiency, cost)
etc.

So I'm looking mostly at ARM, but if I can get everything I want in
another chip I'll certainly give it a good hard look.

At this point I suspect I'm going to be looking at ARMs with LCD
controllers, as well as ARM and seperate LCD controller solutions.
Requires more chips since memory can't be shared, and many LCD
controllers require SRAM instead of cheap DRAM, which jacks up the
cost another few dollars - I'd rather have it on chip and spend a buck
or two more than off chip and spend 2-3 dollars more.

-Adam

On 9/11/06, William Chops Westfield <westfw@mac.com> wrote:
> On Sep 11, 2006, at 6:31 AM, alan smith wrote:
>
> > has a new FPGA ...
>
> FPGAs do not generally have the low current consumption of a
> micro with built-in LCD controller.  Or rather, a significant
> subset of micros with built in LCD support are specifically designed
> for low power consumption (battery power devices.)
>
> Does it have to be an ARM?  The MSP430 series being discussed in
> another thread includes devices with LCD controllers, and they
> ARE aimed at (very) low power applications.
>
> BillW
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