MCUs: High-end devices flourish

It is difficult not to regard the recent history of microcontrollers (MCUs) as BC and AC—before and after Cortex! It is less than seven years since the ARM technology turned its focus directly on the MCU sector and Austin-based Luminary Micro was formed, becoming the first licensee. There are now 123 licensees of the Cortex-M with 5 new companies signing up in the last quarter and another nine existing customers extending their deals. Earlier in the year ARM estimated that its royalty opportunity for 2015 was 19 billion units a year while last year it reported 500 million devices were based on its technology, which gave it a 10% market share.

Market researchers Databeans supported this revolution saying that shipments of ARM processor-based microcontrollers grew at a record pace of over 100% during 2010, compared to about 37% growth for the overall microcontroller market. Most of this growth was attributed to an increase in sales of its Cortex-M family chips, which now comprise about 10% of total ARM shipments.

There are very few of the major microcontroller suppliers who are holing out. Of the top nine in Gartner Inc.'s sales ranking for 2010 only two are not in the ARM club. The market leader, Renesas Electronics, formed in April 2010 from the merger of Renesas Technology and NEC Electronics (ranked number one and two in 2009), is one which, while having an ARM license for SoCs, has not used the technology in its MCUs. Number five Microchip retains its independence with its 32-bit MCUs based on the MIPS M4K Core.

Freescale and Fujitsu were more recent converts to the adoption of Cortex for MCUs when they respectively added the Kinetis and FM3 ranges last year.

What is perhaps obvious is the top nine sellers are there because they also supply 8-bit and/or 16-bit devices as well as the 32-bit MCUs. It is the balance between the traditional technologies and the newer kid on the block that is providing an area of interest. The smaller suppliers who have put many of their eggs into the 32-bit basket are stressing how easy it is to switch designs to high-end technology while long-term 4-, 8-, and 16-bit suppliers are saying there could be over the top for many low-end designs.

Many MCU manufacturers offer mainly proprietary 8- and 16- bit architectures. These devices are often differentiated through their peripheral sets but the rate of development has slowed for low-end devices.

So what is driving the interest in MCUs and in particular the high-end devices? Electronics are proliferating in safety-critical applications and designers need simplified system certification and development. Sectors being looked at include industrial, medical, automotive, mil/aero and solar energy. The automotive industry, for example, is under pressure to provide new and improved vehicle safety systems, from basic airbag-deployment systems to complex advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) with accident prediction and avoidance capabilities.

Texas Instruments recently grouped some existing devices with 34 new products into the Hercules safety MCU platform aimed at transportation, industrial and medical. The TMS570 (TMS570 datasheet) and RM4x dual-core Cortex-based devices look to address random and systematic failures with three existing devices and six more sampling. In development are devices with more memory options and additional peripheries.

Freescale has introduced a similar program called SafeAssure, which provides solutions aimed at reducing the time required to develop safety systems that comply with the upcoming International Standards Organization (ISO) 26262 and existing International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61508 standards. They are suggesting MPC56xx MCUs for automotive and PXSxx for industrial designs including safety shutdown systems, solar inverters, motor drives, factory automation, aerospace and robotics.

Not to be left out, Renesas Electronics America Inc. has recently been showcasing its MCU-based solutions optimized for portable healthcare applications such as devices for blood pressure, blood glucose and heart rate monitoring. In these application areas organizations such as the Continua Health Alliance and ANT+ Alliance as well as Wi-Fi, USB and Ethernet protocols are increasing in importance.

Many other of the suppliers are targeting the same markets trying to get the optimum balance between the amount of on-chip memory and peripherals. What is equally important and is increasing in focus is the provision for on-chip launch of tools to support designs. There is an accelerating trend to enable design using newly announced devices even before samples are delivered. This trend encompasses both tools from the semiconductor manufacturers as well as third-party suppliers with IAR, Green Hills, Keil, Segger or Lauterbach regularly lined up to provide support at launch.

Early RTOS support is following a similar trend with Micrium, Express Logic and CMX Systems among those often quoted as providing ports for devices as they come off the drawing board. FreeRTOS is also one of the first to be ported to new devices but seems to be mainly used for early development and there is little evidence that it is being migrated to production designs

The low-end development boards are becoming cheaper and easier to use out of the box while more expensive variants provide complete systems including multiple I/Os, networking and displays, as well as tools and other software. The MCU manufacturers almost always produce their own boards but there is an increasing move to work with third parties with open-source prototyping platforms like Arduino, the PandaBoard, and Beagle Board.


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