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From: FreeRTOS info on 17 Sep 2009 07:07

> I don't really know much about which cpu cores are available for such
> chips, but if you can get it the AVR core would be a good choice for a
> small low-power embeddable core.

Can that be included in an ASIC?

--
Regards,
Richard.

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From: David Brown on 17 Sep 2009 08:00
FreeRTOS info wrote:
>
>> I don't really know much about which cpu cores are available for such
>> chips, but if you can get it the AVR core would be a good choice for a
>> small low-power embeddable core.
>
> Can that be included in an ASIC?
>

AFAIK, the AVR core is very much designed as a macro for ASICs, and that
is the main market for Atmel. Whether or not they will provide the core
to others is a very different question - the OP would obviously have to
ask Atmel about that.

Of course, I could be wrong about the AVR and ASICs, or perhaps it only
applied to the core's early history.

However, these people appear to make ASICs with AVR cores:

http://www.systemsemi.com/devkit.htm

From: Joseph Yiu on 17 Sep 2009 08:08
moogyd wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am looking at selecting a processor for our SoC platform. Currently
> we use an embedded 8051 core (small, low power, low performance,
> cheap).
>
> For our next project, we need more performance, and we are also trying
> to create a platform suitable for all future projects.
>
> The CPU must be available as RTL (VHDL or Verilog) source.
>
> Obviously, there are lots of options
> - Faster 8051
> - 16-bit ?
> - 32-bit RISC (ARM Cortext M0, ARC 6XXX, OpenRISC)
>
> There are also lots of issues to consider
> - Power uW/MHz
> - Area
> - Performance
> - Cost/Licensing
> - Support and tools
> -
> Can anyone point to any data (comparisons) that would be useful in
> making a decision.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steven
>
>
>

Hi Steven,

I work for ARM so my choice is certainly bias towards ARM cores.
But the following information might be useful for you.

Faster 8051
8051 IP cores are cheap, but as you can see the performance is limiting.
The fastest 8051 IP claimed their Dhrystone DMIPS is 0.1/MHz (but many
others are much slower). But you need to be careful as this often
require special compiler support or C libraries that make use of the
extra features. If using standard 8051 instruction set and features you
would get a lower performance.

Due to the lower performance you might end up clocking the core faster
and hence getting higher power consumption. And in highend 8051 cores,
the register banks are implemented as D-flip-flop rather than SRAM (32
8-bit registers, to allows single cycle execution of instructions). As a
result the gate count of the high-end 8051 can be quite large.



16-bit
There are not too many commerical 16-bit processors. Most of them are
proprietary architecture and therefor the choice of compiler tools are
limited. The performance is several times better than 8051 but mostly
still less than half of ARM processors. Most of the 16-bit processors
has a Dhrystone DMIPS from 0.3/MHz to 0.5/MHz.

The biggest problem you will find with 16-bit core is the 64kbyte memory
limitation. Some 16-bit architectures has workaround for this by allow
paging or segmentation of memory map but it will reduce the efficiency.
If your application requires more than 64kbytes or will expand in the
future, switching to ARM would be a better choice.


ARM Cortex-M0
High performance at small size : Dhrystone DMIPS 0.9/MHz. Smaller than
most 16-bit cores and very good code density (smaller code size than
16-bit cores and 8-bit cores).
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2009/06/10/46252/cortex-m0-used-in-low-power-touch-controller.htm


There are large number of choices for C compilers and debug tools, and
certainly future proof (e.g. tools, memory expansion). The processor
comes with debug features and an integration kit is included to help design.

More details of Cortex-M0 can be found here:
http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM-Cortex-M0.html
http://www.arm.com/miscPDFs/24481.pdf
http://www.techonline.com/learning/webinar/215801022

If you want more technical details feel free to contact us directly or
let me know. You can try out Cortex-M0 using our Microcontroller
Prototyping System (MPS) without any NDA (details on
http://www.keil.com/mps/)

regards,
Joseph
From: Rob Gaddi on 17 Sep 2009 11:55
On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:05:50 -0700 (PDT)
moogyd <moogyd(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am looking at selecting a processor for our SoC platform. Currently
> we use an embedded 8051 core (small, low power, low performance,
> cheap).
>
> For our next project, we need more performance, and we are also trying
> to create a platform suitable for all future projects.
>
> The CPU must be available as RTL (VHDL or Verilog) source.
>
> Obviously, there are lots of options
> - Faster 8051
> - 16-bit ?
> - 32-bit RISC (ARM Cortext M0, ARC 6XXX, OpenRISC)
>
> There are also lots of issues to consider
> - Power uW/MHz
> - Area
> - Performance
> - Cost/Licensing
> - Support and tools
> -
> Can anyone point to any data (comparisons) that would be useful in
> making a decision.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steven
>
>
>

I know that Freescale's now licensing the their 32-bit Coldfire v1
core, and I believe you can also get a license for something in the
HC08 line.


--
Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology
Email address is currently out of order
From: Leo Havmøller on 17 Sep 2009 23:30
"moogyd" <moogyd(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:34da4e9f-a88f-408a-a42e-0b1fa9434e4a(a)33g2000vbe.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I am looking at selecting a processor for our SoC platform. Currently
> we use an embedded 8051 core (small, low power, low performance,
> cheap).
>
> For our next project, we need more performance, and we are also trying
> to create a platform suitable for all future projects.
>
> The CPU must be available as RTL (VHDL or Verilog) source.

Goto http://www.opencores.org/projects, scroll down to "Processors".

Leo Havm�ller.

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