Humm, interesting.  While I think the coming decade will be the decade=20
of ARM (and I've put my money where my mouth is - bought some ARM stock=20
with meagre retirement savings fund), I'm glad to see Microchip is going=20
the MIPS route with a few brave others to be the Pepsi to ARM's Coke.  I=20
think the TI stellaris parts are marvelous and are the 1st choice for=20
most new designs I do, BUT, I worry (well not really actually worry but=20
am mildly concerned) that in 3-4 years ARM will take over everything an=20
progress will slow.  Having a Team B will keep everybody running faster.

What the world actually needs (imho) is a Coretex-M3 or equivalent MIPS=20
design as a hard core in a FPGA with decent analog and (optional)=20
ethernet mac+phy, and have it cost $14 qty 100.  Actel's smartfusion=20
looks great, however it appears to be in the $40+ range (and is way way=20
more FPGA than I'd need for any conceivable design.)

Atmel had a microcontroller with FPGA fabric and it seemed to die on the=20
vine.

Microchip would shake things up with a part like this.  I realize it is=20
a long long road to travel to make something viable, between patents and=20
huge FPGA software tools development effort (they'd have to license=20
something, etc.)  But they would grab a bunch of design wins from the=20
ARM M3 cabal just like that.

Anyway my 2c as I procrastinate a bit.
Cheers,
J



Xiaofan Chen wrote:
> http://www.microchip.com/forums/m531959.aspx
> http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=3DSS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=
=3D2018&mcparam=3Den551486
>
> This may be interesting for PIC32 users. PIC32 is not bad, but
> no fight for Arm Cortex M3 based MCUs from TI, ST, NXP, Atmel,
> etc. But at least Microchip is trying to improve the PIC32 line now
> that it has solid 8-bit line leadership and good 16bit line.
>
>
>
--=20
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