On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 10:31 PM, Matt Bennett wro= te: > On Sat, November 10, 2012 2:36 am, Xiaofan Chen wrote: >> The thing matters is the roadmap, I can see that Imagination/MIPS will >> have no much interests in the MCU space in the future. So Microchip is >> fine now with the M4K/M14K core to compete with Arm Cortex M0/M3 but >> may not have competitive core to compete with Cortex M4 core and future >> Cotex Mx core. > > The MIPS cores are very well represented in the embedded space (for > example, according to Wikipedia, *all* of the venerable Linksys WRT54G > routers are MIPS based), Microchip is just the flagship of MIPS in genera= l > purpose processors. Embedded space is a very wide space, from 4-bit to 32bit to 64bit. From lowly PIC12 to embedded Intel/AMD processors. What I am saying here is the MCU space and not the MPU space (usually with no embedded flash and rely on external RAM and Flash). So I limit the discussion to Cortex M3/M4 (targeting MCU) and not Cortex A8/A9 (more targeting MPU). BTW, Atmel has some ARM926 parts (SAM9XE) which are like an MCU with built-in Flash. For the MCU space, then MIPS is very limited, with Microchip being the only major force behind. Ref: http://electrodesigns.net/blog/pic32/ When ARM release further updates to M3/M4 core, does MIPS/Microchip have answer to those futher updates? I can see that PIC32 can not compete with Cortex M4 already. > As I understand it, the core has potential for greater speed, the limit i= s > the lithography behind the technology and what people are willing to pay > for. Yes I agree with that. From the Microchip/MIPS paper, it seems to me that M4K core has some potential if using more advance manufacturing technology. However I doubt Imagination/MIPS will further the roadmap for the MCU space beyond M14K core. > In terms of physical space on the die, the core is actually pretty > small... memory dominates- You'll notice that the Raspberry Pi actually > uses a separate part for RAM- pushing the cost of manufacture much higher > with Chip-on-chip *and* BGA. > > There is absolutely no indication that the MIPS architecture is going awa= y > or will cease development. Of course it will not going away. It is still a very important player in some specific market. Microchip licensed M14K core, does it include M14Kc core which is capable of running real Linux (with MMU)? It would certainly be interesting if Microchip goes to that market. --=20 Xiaofan --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .