(1) TEXAS INSTRUMENTS TI MSP430 MCU breaks 500 Nano amp barrier eeProductCenter's Marty Gold says: "Targeting battery powered applications, the newest MSP430F20xx microcontroller from Texas Instruments Inc. will deliver 500 nanoamps in standby mode utilizing unique very low-power oscillator (VLO) technology.
" Readers say: » "I like the way it has been packaged for low power consumption."
» "MSP430 is an a simple and inexpensive MCU. We are in the stage of designing it into our more complex equipment to perform servise and upgrade functions."
» "Very impressive. Especially how it enables systems such as fire detectors or home thermostats to operate from the same battery for over a decade."
» "Software compatibility with previous products is an issue."
» "Interesting."
» "I think this is a great product as we move to a more mobile wireless world. Saving energy is the greatest concern to conserve as much natureal resources as possible rather than seek out alternative resources. Why not "not consume" more resources?"
» "Eliminating external components is good. Reduces the PCB size and component cost."
» "Great combination of low power, speed, and on-chip peripherals"
» "Very low power with good functionality make this a really good candidate for small embedded applications. The TI support for the product is just about as good as it comes, too."
» "Low power consumption and a lot of flavor. Drawback is speed and on-chip ram."
» "Very Interesteing, may have a future use. I'll continue to monitor product."
» "Should be very useful in spacecraft equipment."
» "This is an impressive barrier to have broken."
» "Great little micro, very versatile, good tools and support. I've used it for a couple of small projects and likely will again in the future."
» "Low power is critical in communications devices where battery life is an important factor in the design criteria."
» "What compilers are available?"
» "Impressed that the clock is included. Want to know more of the microcontroller capabilities."
» "Wonderful! Low power, less heat, more relaible...."
» "Having worked with previous versions of the MSP430, I'd have to say I'm very impressed with the hardware and the capabilities this MCU has."
» "Very Cool. I ordered the $20 dollar demo kit, so I could learn more about it at home.
Not enough power to replace the OMAP chip I use at work, but some interesting peripherals available, like a hardware multiplier..."
» "Improvement in low power standby is worthwhile in low duty cycle applications. Added functions will keep designs simpler and cost effective."
» "We work with rad hard components for space flight. There are many space applications that could use very low powered sensors that "wakeup" when an event occurs. The 1us switch time is great. But we would need a rad hard configuration for it to be useful for us."
» "Low power is a necessary requirement for our next products."
» "The ability to control charging characteristics is critical, I am excited to see that TI is focusing efforts to compliment the need to transition this industry forward."
» "Looks like this MCU will help achieving a way better performance in power consumption and reliablity. Pricing looks reasonable. A new serious product from TI."
» "This part looks extremely useful as an accesory chip. I would like to see more on the IO."
» "Greatest long-term impact on consumer products. The future's so bright, they "got to wear shades.""
» "Most likely use: intelligent sensor applications."
» "Compelling performance and very low power at a price point that will enable intelliegence where it hasn't been before."
» "Amperage barrier breakage is significant & should be targeted by all manufacturers for low power apps"
» "This is the kind of breakthough I have been waiting for. This is huge for the battery operated device market."
» "This would make an ideal supervisor MCU"
» "Excellent for long term battery powered monitoring and solar powered equipment."
USABILITY RANK: 1
(2) SANDISK 4-Gbyte embedded storage device to replace micro hard drives eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "SanDisk Corp.'s iNAND is a small, high-speed NAND flash storage device that the company is touting as an alternative to micro hard drives in mobile applications.
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The embedded storage device employs the company's TrustedFlash technology that will enable consumers to buy premium music, movies and games on flash memory cards for use interchangeably in mobile phones, laptop computers, PDAs and other portable devices.
" Readers say: » "Want to know more about the ECC implementation."
» "Unbelievable write speed and pkg size. Pricing ok."
» "Ability to be used for different platforms is important for convenience and flexibility." » "Reducing the equivalent volume 25 times smaller, are you kidding me? Wow!"
» "Useful."
» "Interesting"
» "I'm impressed by most of what SanDisk has done over the years for Flash technology."
» "Good idea."
» "Part of a growing trend, with a race to the finish - higher density & cheaper prices please." USABILITY RANK: 2
(3) SPANSION One-Gbit NOR flash memory device hits the market eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "
By scaling MirrorBit technology to 90-nm, Spansion LLC has yielded a single-chip 1-Gbit NOR flash memory device that it is targeting specifically at the embedded sector.
The 1-Gbit MirrorBit product is the latest addition to the company's GL family, which includes densities ranging from 16-Mbit to 512-Mbit. It operates at 3-V, features a random read speed of 110-ns and offers a page read speed of 25-ns through an 8-word page buffer.
The device is backwards compatible with previous-generation products, supporting common software, pin-out and packaging as the MirrorBit GL-M (230-nm), MirrorBit GL-A (200-nm) and MirrorBit GL-N (110-nm) devices. It is also backward compatible with legacy Fujitsu and Advanced Micro Devices LV family members manufactured using 320-nm process technology.
" Readers say: » "Like the backward compatibility as a feature."
» "Fantastic price, speed, and density. 3V is ok, support for 1.8V if possible would be great."
» "Useful."
» "Interesting."
» "The significance here is not the device size, but the fact that it is available for embedded applications."
» "THe MirrorBit technology looks like a winner - would like to see whitepaper links & more info on the joint effort between AMD & Fujitsu - nice to see Intel has co-opitition."
» "The relentless march of memory advances continues. This is essential!"
» "I will pass this on to engineering." USABILITY RANK: 5
(4) INTEL 90-nm MLC NOR flash reaches 1-Gbit density eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "
Intel Corp. has introduced its fifth generation of StrataFlash multi-level cell (MLC) flash products dubbed M18, which it claims are the first 1.8-V, 90-nm NOR devices in production.
Targeted at the handset market, M18 devices are available in densities of 256-Mbit, 512-Mbit and can address 1-Gbit density requirements using Intel's stacked chip-scale packages (CSP) with ball-outs that support PSRAM and SDRAM in shared and split bus architectures.
With a read-speed processing frequency of up to 133-MHz and a 0.5-Mbytes/s write speed, the M18 supports 3MP (mega pixel) cameras and MPEG4 video.
" Readers say: » "Read speed ok, but write speed too slow. Hard to evaluate selection of this type of device without any pricing info."
» "Interesting."
» "It is hard to get too excited about another FLA SH announcement when tomorrow there will be another even better announcement. This product looks good though." USABILITY RANK: 6
(5) SILICON STORAGE TECHNOLOGY Disk controller supports NAND flash memory in mass-storage systems eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "
The SST55LC100 CompactFlash NAND flash disk controller from Silicon Storage Technology Inc. (SST) enables designers to build mass-data storage systems with standard NAND flash memory.
By embedding SuperFlash technology, the SST55LC100 CompactFlash NAND flash disk controller can support the latest NAND flash components through firmware changes that are programmed into the embedded flash. Traditional masked-ROM based controllers require mask changes to incorporate any new NAND devices, according to Samuel Nakhimovsky, senior product marketing manager of Application Specific Controller Products Group at SST.
" Readers say: » "The suggested architecture in the supporting image suggests a bottleneck if too many of the memory units are employed. What of memory management to organize data. That could improve throughput. WIth multiple units, how would such a strategy be implemented ?"
» "Interesting."
» "For our signal processing requirements, this product has significance."
USABILITY RANK: 7
(6) FREESCALE SEMICONDUCTOR 8-bit MCU line adds more integration for under $1 eeProductCenter's Marty Gold says: "
Freescale Semiconductor has expanded its line of 8-bit microcontroller chips with the launching of its S08QG family of highly integrated devices.
To deliver increased on-chip integration, Freescaleıs MC9S08QG8/QG4 MCUs add an enhanced 8-channel, 10-bit analog-to-digital converter designed for better resolution, speed of conversion and low-power. The onboard analog integration allows customers to easily interface to analog inputs with minimal external glue logic. The inclusion of a serial communications interface (SCI), a serial peripheral interface (SPI) module and inter-integrated circuit (IIC) bus modules maximizes the customerıs options for external components to interface with and enables increased design flexibility, according to the company.
" Readers say:
» "Good Low / Medium end embedded device. Good combination of features."
» "Alternative to TI MSP430. CodeWarrior is great, price/performance is phenomenal."
» "The S08 line of chips is a good product for small embedded systems. The serial debug method is a little limiting, but acceptable because of its low cost."
» "Ethernet apps usually use 16 and 32-bit cpu's."
» "Sweet... actually speaks to a development effort for multi-channel transducer arrays we are working on. May not be for everyone, but helps me!" USABILITY RANK: 3
(7) MICROCHIP PIC MCU line moves up to 16-bits eeProductCenter's Marty Gold says: "
Microchip Technology Inc. has launched its first family of 16-bit PIC microcontrollers called the PIC24 to address the growing performance needs of embedded designers. There are 22 general-purpose devices that offer up to 40 MIPS performance, 16 Kbytes of RAM, 256 Kbytes of flash program memory, and up to 100-pin packages.
The family is comprised of two series. The 16 MIPS PIC24F offers a cost-effective step up in performance, memory and peripherals for many applications that are pushing the envelope of 8-bit microcontroller capabilities. For more demanding applications, the PIC24H offers 40 MIPS performance, more memory and additional peripherals, such as CAN communication modules.
" Readers say: » "Higher performance is surely needed, easier migration with a little lower compiler and 10K unit pricing."
» "Nice that the low cost line is finally at 16 bits."
» "Useful." USABILITY RANK: 4
(8) SAMSUNG DRAM maker ships 256-Mbit, GDDR4 device for testing eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has shipped a graphics double data rate fourth generation (GDDR4), 256-Mbit device to major graphics card manufacturers for testing.
The GDDR4 memory device processes gaming and video images at 2.5-Gbits/s or 10-Gbytes/s, which is equal to transmitting 10 hours of DVD quality video. The fastest graphics memory to this point has been limited to a speed of 1.6-Gbits/s.
As games and video become increasingly high resolution and encompass more content, graphics-DRAM data processing needs to improve at a similar pace. But when data travels between the graphics chip and the resident system, there's typically an inherent transmission delay that has limited the transmission speed.
To reach the 2.5-Gbits/s speed and eliminate transmission delays, the GDDR4 device employs two technologiesıData Bus Inversion (DBI) and Multi-Preamble. Collectively, the technologies help produce a transmission speed that is 56% faster than conventional graphics products, the company said.
" Readers say: USABILITY RANK: 9
(9) KIEL SOFTWARE 8051 MCU tool casts bigger, better net eeProductCenter's Gil Bassak says: "
Keil Software, Inc. has rolled out uVision3, an integrated development environment (IDE) and a key component in its model PK51 and other development kits covering a wide range of 8051 MCU variants. Besides adding source code outlining, a function navigator, template editing, and incremental search functions, the IDE incorporates the company's new C51 Version 8 compiler.
In addition, uVision3 features a configuration wizard that cuts the time needed to generate start-up code and configuration files. Also, a built-in simulator models the target MCU, including instruction set, on-chip peripherals, and external signals. A logic analyzer, also part of uVision3, juxtaposes program variables with state changes on the MCU's I/O pins and peripherals.
" Readers say: » "Good to see support on a mature product type."
» "Features needed to remain competitive in this market, need a lower cost less featured option."
» "We have projects with legacy 8051 MCU code, might be worth while to look at."
» "IDE's for dev are largely over-rated and mainly underperformed... generic implementations are even more suspect, require a huge learning curve - however, a host of interesting modules target useful bench reducing features, such as built-in sim."
USABILITY RANK: 8
(10) INPHI CORP. FB-DIMM features low size, latency and power consumption eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "
The IN581AMB fully-buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) from Inphi Corp. is said to be the first device that includes an interface between the high-speed serial interface and DDR2 SDRAM and is fully compliant with the JEDEC advanced memory buffer (AMB) specifications.
The IN581AMB is designed to enhance the performance of the high-speed, serial, point-to-point connection between the memory controller and the modules on the channel in next-generation servers and communications devices.
"AMB technology is revolutionizing the memory industry by enabling the migration of memory to processor architectures from parallel bus to a serial bus format, similar to the I/O in many other communications systems," said Desi Rhoden, chairman of the JEDEC Memory Committee and executive vice president of Inphi.
" Readers say: » "As a user, more than a designer, this technology would be transparent to me. However, one would hope these advancements are utilized as soon as possible. Enormous data files, CAD files, etc need to be exchanged at an ever increasing rate. This type of technology would be welcomed." » "Significant bandwidth utilization & capacity in the chain." USABILITY RANK: 10
