Analysis of the top ten hottest new microprocessor and memory products in the first quarter of 2006

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Analysis of the top ten hottest new microprocessor and memory products in the first quarter of 2006 [Copy link]

Analysis of the top ten hottest new microprocessor and memory products in the first quarter of 2006

TI's MSP430 MCU breaks the 500nA limit Editor's Recommendation : Texas Instruments' (TI) latest MSP430F20xx microcontroller is mainly aimed at battery-powered applications. The MCU uses a unique ultra-low power crystal oscillator (VLO) technology, with a current of only 500nA in standby mode. Reader Comments : 1. I like this low-power package. 2. MSP430 is a simple and cheap MCU. We are applying it to more complex product designs to achieve service and upgrade functions. 3. It is indeed remarkable, especially when the same battery conditions can keep systems such as fire detectors or home thermostats operating for more than ten years. 4. Software compatibility with previous products is a problem. 5. Interesting! 6. It would be even better if it could be used in wireless mobile devices. Saving energy is always better for protecting natural resources than finding substitutes. Why consume more resources? 7. Reducing peripheral components is indeed beneficial and can reduce PCB size and component costs. 8. Perfectly integrates low power consumption, speed and on-chip peripheral devices. 9. Ultra-low power consumption and multi-functions make it very suitable for small embedded applications. At the same time, TI's support for this product is also good. 10. Low power consumption and multi-function, the disadvantages are speed and on-chip RAM. 11. Very good product, I can use it in the future, I will continue to pay attention to this MCU. 12. It should be very useful in aerospace equipment. 13. Breaking through limits is worth paying attention to. 14. Small chip, big money, multi-function, complete tools and technical support. I have used MSP430 in several small projects and will probably continue to use it in the future. 15. Low power consumption is the key to design in communication equipment where battery life is an important indicator. 16. Which compiler should I use? 17. The integrated clock is impressive, and I would like to know more about the functions of this MCU. 18. Great! Low power consumption, less heat, more reliable... 19. I have used previous versions of MSP430, but I would like to understand the hardware and functions of this MCU. 20. Cool! I ordered a $20 demo kit so I could learn more about this MCU at home. It doesn't have enough power to replace the OMAP chip I use, but it has some useful peripheral features, such as a hardware multiplier... 21. The ability to reduce standby power consumption in low duty cycle applications is commendable, and the addition of other functions can reduce the difficulty and cost of design. 22. We need to use radiation-resistant (rad hard) devices in space flight. Event-driven low-power sensors are used in many space applications. 1us switching time is an excellent indicator, but for our application, we need to provide radiation-resistant products. 23. Low power consumption is a must for our next generation products. 24. The function of controlling charging parameters is very important, and I am glad that TI has taken this need into consideration. 25. It seems that this MCU can help achieve higher performance with low power consumption and reliability, and the price seems reasonable. 26. As a combination function chip, it seems extremely useful. I would like to know more about its I/O performance. 27. This has far-reaching significance for consumer products, and the future is bright! 28. Most likely application: smart sensor application. 29. Achieve high performance and low power consumption for delayed intelligent applications at this price point. 30. Breaking through the power consumption limit is of great significance and brings hope to all low-power application manufacturers. 31. This is the breakthrough I have been waiting for, and it is of great significance for battery-powered products. 32. This is an ideal monitoring MCU. 33. It is an excellent choice for long-term battery-powered monitoring and solar-powered equipment. Usability rank : 1 SanDisk's 4GB embedded storage device can replace micro hard drives Editor's Choice : SanDisk's iNAND is a small, high-speed NAND flash memory device that is said to be a replacement for micro hard drives in mobile applications. The embedded storage device uses SanDisk's TrustedFlash technology, which allows consumers to buy flash memory cards preloaded with music, movies and games, and can interact with mobile phones, laptops, PDAs and other portable devices. Reader Comments : 1. I would like to know more details about ECC implementation. 2. Incredible write speed and package size, and the price is also good. 3. Being free from application platform restrictions is extremely important for convenience and flexibility. 4. The volume is reduced by 25 times with the same capacity. Is that a lie? 5. Very useful. 6. Not bad! 7. SanDisk's efforts in Flash technology over the years are impressive. 8. Good idea! 9. In line with the trend, it will eventually produce products with higher storage density and lower prices. Usability Rank : 2 Freescale's new 8-bit MCU costs less than $1 Editor's Recommendation : Freescale Semiconductor has added a highly integrated product, the S08QG series, to its 8-bit microcontroller family. The MC9S08QG8/QG4 MCU adds an enhanced 8-channel, 10-bit A/D converter, providing a simple interface for the user's analog input and reducing the cost of external components. The MCU provides a serial communication interface (SCI), a serial peripheral interface (SPI) module, and an internal integrated circuit (IIC) bus module, thereby minimizing the number of external components and increasing design flexibility. Reader Comments : 1. Very good low/mid-end embedded device with good integration characteristics. 2. It can replace TI's MSP430. CodeWarrior is also good and has a high cost performance. 3. The S08 series MCU is indeed good for small embedded systems. The serial debugging method is a bit limited, but it is acceptable because the price is low. 4. Ethernet applications usually use 10 and 32-bit CPUs. 5. Very cute, especially for our development using multi-channel conversion arrays. Maybe not useful to everyone, but it helps me a lot. Usability Rank : 3 Microchip Launches 16-bit PIC MCU Editor's recommendation : Microchip Technology has released the first series of 16-bit PIC microcontrollers, the PIC24. The MCU offers 22 general-purpose devices, instruction speeds up to 40MIPS, 16KB of RAM, 256KB of flash memory, and a 100-pin package. The PIC24 series MCU consists of two series, of which the 16 MIPS PIC24F offers high cost efficiency in terms of performance, memory, and peripheral interfaces, while the PIC24H has 40MIPS performance, more memory capacity, and peripheral interfaces, such as CAN communication modules. Reader Comments : 1. Higher performance is indeed important, porting is also convenient, and the price is 10K in bulk. 2. It's great to have such a low-cost 16-bit product. 3. Very useful. Usability Rank : 4 Spansion 1Gb NOR Flash Impacts Memory Market Editor's Recommendation : By extending MirrorBit technology to 90ns process, Spansion LLC has launched a monolithic 1Gbit NOR flash memory device for embedded applications. The 1Gb MirrorBit product is the latest member of Spansion's GL family, with storage density between 16Mb and 512Mb, an operating voltage of 3V, a random read speed of 110ns, and a page read speed of 25ns through an 8-word page buffer. The device is backward compatible with earlier products and supports universal software. The pins and packages are the same as MirrorBit GL-M (230-nm), MirrorBit GL-A (200-nm) and MirrorBit GL-N (110-nm). In addition, this flash memory is also compatible with Fujitsu and Advanced Micro Devices LV family products based on the 320nm process. Reader Comments : 1. I like this backward compatibility. 2. Incredible price, speed and storage density. 3V is not bad, but it would be better if it could support 1.8V. 3. Very useful. 4. Make people interested. 5. What is important is not the package size, but whether it can be used in embedded applications. 6. MirrorBit technology seems to be successful - but I would like to see a link to the technical white paper and more information about the cooperation between AMD and Fujitsu - I would like to see a competitive cooperation (co-opitition) involving Intel. 7. Storage technology continues to advance by leaps and bounds, this is the fundamental! 8. I want to use it in engineering design. Usability rank : 5 Intel's 90nm MLC NOR flash memory can reach 1Gb storage density Editor's recommendation : Intel's fifth-generation StrataFlash multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory product M18 is the first 1.8V, 90nm NOR device to achieve mass production. M18 is mainly aimed at the handheld device market, providing 256Mbit and 512Mbit single-chip capacity, and can be used in Intel's chip-scale packaging (CSP) to become a 1Gb chip. Its pins support PSRAM and SDRAM under shared and split bus architectures, with a read speed of up to 133MHz and a write speed of 0.5MB/s. At the same time, the product also supports 3MP cameras and MPEG4 videos. Reader Comments : 1. The read speed is good, but the write speed is too slow. It is difficult to estimate its usability without knowing the price information. 2. Very good. 3. It's hard to get excited if you hear tomorrow that another flash memory is better. But this flash memory still sounds good. Usability rank : 6 SST's disk controller supports NAND flash memory for mass storage systems Editor's Choice : Silicon Storage Technology's (SST) SST55LC100 CompactFlash NAND flash controller enables designers to build mass storage systems based on standard NAND flash memory. The controller embeds SuperFlash technology and can change its firmware to support the latest NAND flash memory components by programming the embedded flash memory, while traditional mask ROM-based controllers require changing the mask program to integrate new NAND devices. Reader Comments : 1. If too many storage units are used, the architecture supporting the image may have bottlenecks. How can memory management achieve data organization to improve throughput? How to solve this problem by using multiple units? 2. Worth paying attention to. 3. This product is of great significance to our signal processing needs. Usability Rank : 7 Keil releases new 8051 MCU tools Editor's Choice : The uVision3 integrated development environment (IDE) from Keil Software provides an important component in its PK51 and other development kits, covering all products of 8051 MCU. In addition to adding source code description, function wizard, template editing and search functions, the IDE also integrates Keil's C51 Version 8 compiler. In addition, uVision3 also provides a configuration wizard to shorten the time to generate startup code and configuration files, while its built-in simulator can simulate the target MCU, including instruction sets, on-chip peripheral interfaces, and peripheral signals. uVision3 provides a logic analyzer that synchronously displays program variables as I/O pins and peripheral interfaces change. The stereo headphone amplifier is also powered by a 3.3V power supply and can continuously provide an average of 25mW of power for each channel to drive a stereo 32Ω load with only 1% total harmonic distortion and noise. Reader Comments : 1. It’s great to see support for mature products. 2. It is competitive in the market, but costs need to be further reduced. 3. We also plan to use the previous 8051 MCU code, which may be worth a look. 4. IDEs are mostly overhyped for dev... conventional implementations are even more questionable and require a lot of learning. Usability Rank : 8 Samsung launches 256Mb GDDR4 device Editor's Choice : Samsung Electronics has officially launched a graphics double data rate fourth generation (GDDR4) 256Mb video memory device for graphics card manufacturers for testing. GDDR4 memory devices can process game and video images at a speed of 2.5Gbps or 10GBps, which is equivalent to transferring 10 hours of DVD-quality video. The fastest video memory speed is currently limited to 1.6Gbps. As the resolution and content of games and videos increase, the image DRAM data processing performance needs to be further improved. However, when data is transmitted between the graphics chip and the local system, its inherent transmission delay limits the transmission rate. In order to achieve a 2.5Gbps transmission rate and reduce transmission delay, GDDR4 devices use data bus inversion (DBI) and Multi-Preamble technology, which increases the transmission speed by 56% compared to traditional graphics products. Usability Rank : 9 Inphi launches FB-DIMM with small package, low latency and low power consumption Editor's recommendation : Inphi's IN581AMB is the industry's first fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) device with high-speed serial ports and DDR2 SDRAM interfaces, fully compatible with the JEDEC AMB specification. The IN581AMB can be used to improve the high-speed, serial, point-to-point connection performance between memory controllers and channel modules of next-generation servers and communication equipment. AMB technology is an innovative technology for memory products. It can achieve the transition from parallel bus to serial bus to memory-to-processor architecture, making it applicable like I/O in other communication systems. Reader Comments : 1. As a user rather than a designer, this technology is transparent to me. However, people always hope that these advances can be put into practice as soon as possible. Large amounts of data files, CAD files, etc. need to be exchanged with increased transmission rates, and this type of technology will be welcomed. 2. What matters is bandwidth and capacity. Usability rank : 10