Ken says:

NXP (Philips as they were) have just announced their LPC800 family of
microcontrollers that I think really will put a dent in the market for
traditional 8-bit devices (like the LPC900 family we currently make
extensive
use of).

In a nutshell an LPC800 device is an ARM Cortex M0+ 32-bit low-power
processor
with basic peripherals (including a fairly decent analog comparator), a
cross-point switch for ALL I/O, and a modicum of Flash code memory and SRAM
 -
and available in low pin-count easy-to-use packages  - including I'm told
DIP8.
The 8-pin variants of the LPC900 family only remained in production for a
couple
of years (much to our frustration after designing them in to several
products)
so I'm a little skeptical but we'll see.

It's not the first "tiny" ARM processor based on the M0+ core, but it's
arguably
the first that is consciously designed to compete with traditional 8-bit
offerings (including NXP's own LPC900 family).

Effective code space (16kB max) is increased by additional ROM that provide=
s
drivers for some of the peripherals (like UART and I2C) and for
power-control
functions.  SRAM can be up to 4kB.

The CPU operates at up to 30 MHz (with clock generator PLL) and I/O pins
can be
updated in a single cycle (so it's no slouch compared with typical
8-bitters).
An internal 1%-accurate RC clock generator eliminates the need for an
external
crystal in many applications.

The peripherals include specific provision to wake the processor from deep
sleep
on hardware qualified stimuli  - so effective power consumption can be
better
than many traditional 8-bitters.

Supply voltage can be from 1.8V to 3.6V.  At 3.3V the supply current at
"full
tilt" (30MHz) is 3.3mA max around 1.5mA at 12MHz with all peripherals
active.
In Sleep Mode (processor stopped, all peripheraps running), supply current
is
approximately halved.  Full power-down consumption (with ability to wake up
on
external stimuli) is around 200nA. I'm guessing that supply current falls
somewhat with supply voltage.

Pricing is set to to make that no barrier when choosing between an 8-bitter
and
an LPC800 device.  Pricing for the LPC810 (4kB Flash, 1kB SRAM, DIP8) is
US$0.39
(quantity not specified).  The current "high-end" device is the LPC812 (16k=
B
Flash, 4kB SRAM, TSSOP20).  Both available "soon".
--=20
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