MCU's high integration and low power design meet market demand (1)

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In the face of the colorful MCU world, how to choose the right chip and supplier in the new product design and the old product update will be an important issue, because both the product update and the MCU update speed are far beyond Designers envision that correctly understanding the development trend of MCU and using MCU to help product innovation are issues that electronic designers are considering.

Recently, major semiconductor companies have expressed their concern for the MCU (microcontroller/microcontroller) market, and have introduced new MCU chips. Freescale announced on June 17th at the Freescale Technology Forum in Orlando, Florida. MCU will be an important product line for their future business growth. In addition to continuing to lead the advantages of MCUs in the automotive electronics field, the development of general-purpose MCUs will be emphasized. The rapid growth of ARM architecture in the embedded microprocessor market will drive ARM's leading position in the MCU market. After the success of ARM7TDMI, Cortex-M3 is becoming the mainstream of 32-bit MCUs with high performance, low power consumption and low cost; 8/16-bit MCUs continue to maintain market output advantages, and various 8051 structures are based on 8 bits. MCU mainstream, traditional 8-bit MCU AVR, Renesas R8C/Tiny have also released new products, 16-bit MSP430 outstanding performance in low-power wireless applications.

32 people are very popular

Consumer electronics, automotive electronics and industrial applications are driving the adoption of 32-bit MCUs. Gartner's data shows that by 2012, the total number of 32-bit MCUs (plus 32-bit smart cards) will be very close to 8/16-bit. The MCU totals, but sales will exceed 8/16 MCU. (see picture 1 ). It's not hard to see that the old 8/16-bit MCU vendors have entered the 32-bit market in 2008, and the real reason for the 32-bit new products that are compatible with their 8/16-bit is: Who wouldn't want to give up the big 32-bit MCU? Meals, and the grand occasion is still far from starting. For example, Microchip released the PIC32 in 2008 in the hope of stabilizing its users' choices when upgrading to 32-bit.

Figure 1 Value of the MCU market

32-bit MCUs can deliver higher performance and are not very expensive. The data shows that the latest STM32 Coretex M3 is 1.25DMIPS, PIC32 has 1.5DMIPS; 32-bit MCU also has more flash space (not enough to expand), ensuring large-capacity software code runs to adapt to the increase of application software. The open CPU architecture in the 32-bit MCU market is fully recognized, such as ARM7/9, CortecM3 and MIPS. After ARM7TDMI was produced and successfully achieved by the world's major MCU vendors including NXP and Atmel, ARM's newly released Cortex- M3 is promising as the 8051 in the MCU. In addition to high performance, large storage space and rich software and tool support, the Cortex-M3 core is only 0.19 mW/MHz (8051 is 0.5mW/MHz). Take ST32F10X as an example, it can work at 2.0~3.6V, only 3.5uA current consumption in standby mode (RTCon), and only 0.5mA/MHz in flash memory operation. Following the launch of Luminary's 8-bit MCU based on Cortex-M3 in early 2006, ST (STMicroelectronics) introduced ST32 MCUs in 2007 to today's ST. Other semiconductor companies are also unwilling to lag behind. NXP, TI and Zilog have announced their licenses for Cortex-M3. Recently, Ateml announced that it has been licensed by Cortex-M3 as the core of the next-generation AT91SAM (Atmel ARM-based MCU). Atmel plans to integrate its MCU's high integration and low power design to meet market demands. The AT91SAM3 Flash MCU family will combine ARM Cortex-M3 processors and system components such as a multi-level internal bus, a high-speed DMA support system peripheral and distributed Peripheral controller for higher speed data transfer capabilities. No doubt Atmel's participation will establish Coretex-M3's position in the MCU market. In the current situation, if the new design does not take into account the inheritance of the old product, the Coretex-M3 MCU chip can be prioritized when selecting the ARM core MCU.

The 32-bit MCU will continue to develop in the future. We know that multi-core applications are currently concentrated in data center servers, but with the intensive computing demands, such as automotive electronics, image processing and video surveillance industries, multi-core MCUs will emerge, such as the Freescale MPC563xM series we see today. A 32-bit automotive powertrain MCU to improve the efficiency and performance of a small engine with one to four cylinders. The MCU core of the MPC563xM device is based on multi-core Power Architecture and DSP engine technology; another example is the TI DaVinci TMS320DM644X digital media processor consisting of a dual-core MCU (ARM9+C64X DSP).

Another feature of the 32-bit MCU development trend is the consideration of a seamless migration between 8/16/32 bits. A large number of embedded applications will be concentrated on 8/16 digits in the past and for some time to come, but considering the intensification of market competition, the introduction of high-performance upgrade products has become one of the issues that must be considered in the initial design of products, making it easy to upgrade. The flexible MCU architecture will be welcomed. For example, when Microchip's new 32-bit MCU PIC32 is highlighted, it is also compatible with the pins, registers and peripherals of the PIC24/disPIC DSC. The new version of the MPLAB open environment adds 32-bit PIC32 support to the original 8/16-bit MCU. The 16-bit general-purpose peripheral API library, so the same open environment can be run by recompiling the code when replacing the MCU. The same line of thought is Freescale's Flexis QE128, including the 8-bit S08 and ColdfireV1. Upgrade plan for the kernel.

Single function and high integration

Simplification and integration are a trend in MCU development, especially on 8/16-bit MCUs. In the field of wireless communication, we have seen TI's ZigBee MCU CC2430 with integrated 8051 core and Freescale's 68HC08 core ZigBee MCU MC1321X; the role of USB in connection and storage is widely recognized in embedded systems, and a large number of USBMCUs are in operation. The NEC's USB 2.0 host and peripheral MCU, PIC18F13K50 and PIC18F14K50 are an 8-bit USB MCU. To meet the growing demand for advanced USB connectivity in the final product, the Microchip PIC32 USB OTG is a 32-bit USB MCU that introduces USB OTG functionality. These single-function MCUs are highly integrated on a single chip, and a board with some peripheral power and power components can form a complete embedded system, and these chips are generally equipped with optimized ZigBee-enabled protocols and USB. The protocol's software library allows designers to complete projects quickly. Other traditional single-function MCU applications include digital power supplies, motor control, and electricity meters, such as Renesas' R8C/Tiny series of MCUs for meter applications.