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NXP produces multicore (dual Cortex M0 & M4) processor — Parallax Forums

NXP produces multicore (dual Cortex M0 & M4) processor

Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
edited 2011-01-31 19:30 in Propeller 1
I just noticed this article http://www.techfocusmedia.net/archives/articles/20110119-nxp/

I couldn't resist posting a comment about the prop there :)
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Comments

  • ColeyColey Posts: 1,112
    edited 2011-01-22 02:43
    In my opinion this is Props biggest threat. ARM is gaining ground everywhere just look at Microsoft's recent announcement that the next version of windows will run on ARM processors.
    Its only a matter of time before they produce something similar with more cores.....

    I really hope Prop II can gain a foothold in the marketplace before they do.

    Regards,

    Coley
  • BatangBatang Posts: 234
    edited 2011-01-22 03:07
    Also ARM variants come fully loaded with peripheral devices and more memory than you can poke a stick at and are produced in such quantities that they are price effective:)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-22 04:16
    I've got some samples of this tiny ARM Cortex-M0 chip:

    http://www.nxp.com/news/content/file_1701.html

    I'm working on a little 14-DIL PCB for them that will plug into a breadboard or prototyping board.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-01-22 04:36
    How many cores doe the chip have?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-22 05:28
    Just one, a Cortex-M0. There isn't much room for anything else, given that it's about 2 mm square with 16 balls! I could put lots of them in the same area as a Propeller QFP chip, of course. Come to think of it, that would make an interesting project.
  • Martin HodgeMartin Hodge Posts: 1,246
    edited 2011-01-22 06:59
    Cluso99 wrote: »
    I couldn't resist posting a comment about the prop there :)

    And your comment has already been challenged I see.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2011-01-22 07:50
    Yes and the challenger has seriously missed the point:
    "Whilst the P8X32A is interesting it has no peripherals to speak of...
    Exactly, that's the beauty of the Prop, it has 8 blank CPU's that can be moulded into whatever peripherals you want in software.
    ...let alone have a dedicated IO processor.
    My Prop projects have 7 I/O processors. I adopt the model that one COG is my "main program" and the rest is peripherals.

    I don't have the patience to get an account there and reply, perhaps Cluso will.

    Now having said that, one of my dream chips would have a 1GHz ARM hooked up to megabytes of RAM and FLASH with all it's Ethernet and USB etc interfaces. It would then have an on board Propeller to wiggle 64 or 96 I/O pins at my command:)

    Hmm...Do you think Parallax could licence some ARM core IP and put an ARM core in one corner of the Prop II or III:)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-22 08:01
    The 80 MHz Cluso claimed for the Propeller is misleading. Each core only runs at 20 MIPS and hub access is much slower, whereas that NXP ARM chip has two 150 MIPS cores, one of which is optimised for DSP (the article is wrong about the DSP functionality being rudimentary). Freescale has similar devices.

    I've got a 1 GHz ARM (Qualcomm Snapdragon) in my Dell Streak tablet, and Qualcomm has chips with two 1 GHz ARM cores. The Snapdragon includes all the usual interfaces like GPS, Ethernet, 3G, graphics, etc. They are working on a 2 GHz version.
  • lardomlardom Posts: 1,659
    edited 2011-01-22 09:32
    Is there anything as active as the Parallax community? I'm a hobbyist whose growth has been rapid because of this forum and the OBEX . This community is synergistic. I would also think that the multicore Propeller has raised the bar.

    I would add that I'm a hobbyist because I don't yet know how to market what I've created. I have more ideas and it is only a matter of time before I learn to successfully reach my future consumers.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-22 09:36
    The AVR Freaks and Microchip forums are very active, as is my NXP LPC2000 group.
  • BatangBatang Posts: 234
    edited 2011-01-22 20:47
    The same can be said for the Freescale user groups.
  • BatangBatang Posts: 234
    edited 2011-01-22 20:57
    Heater: "Now having said that, one of my dream chips would have a 1GHz ARM hooked up to megabytes of RAM and FLASH with all it's Ethernet and USB etc interfaces. It would then have an on board Propeller to wiggle 64 or 96 I/O pins at my command"

    Would it not make more sense to 'wiggle' the pins on the ARM chip not to mention somewhat cheaper as well!

    With the new NXP 2mm ARM that Leon mentioned its only a matter of time before we see multi core (more than 2) ARM devices.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,519
    edited 2011-01-22 21:14
    Couldn't resist responding (to the original article). Lazy journalism should always be challenged.

    Ross.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2011-01-22 22:59
    Have I stirred them up a bit?? Hmm... good then :)

    Leon: Here's your chance to tell them about your favorite chip too!
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2011-01-23 00:21
    Batang,
    Would it not make more sense to 'wiggle' the pins on the ARM chip not to mention somewhat cheaper as well!
    No. That question indicates that you have overlooked some of the key features of the Prop as well.

    With the Prop I get:
    1) Eight cores all running with deterministic timing.
    2) Cores have their own RAM and round robin access to shared RAM. They can run in total isolation for speed or access shared RAM with no timing contention jitter.
    2) Eight cores means not having to use interrupts.
    3) Not having interrupts means I get to use the deterministic timing without worrying how tasks disturb each other timing wise.
    4) Result: I can wiggle the pins to drive esoteric hardware, promptly respond to external events, or generate weird signals all very easily.

    With the ARM I would be bogged down in interrupts and timing issues trying to do anything complicated on the I/O core.

    Or course if they produced an 8 core ARM with each core having it's own RAM that might change the game a bit. But they would still be far away from the real-time handling available with the Prop and dare I say it XMOS.

    I don't believe the likes of ARM are interested in moving into the real-time space of the Prop and XMOS. ARM has the general purpose mobile CPU market sewn up already.

    And I don't believe Parallax and XMOS want to move into the general pupose CPU arena. The Prop II will make this gulf between general purpose and real-time embedded silicon even wider.

    Conclusion: So far no ARM is any threat to the Prop (or XMOS).
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,519
    edited 2011-01-23 00:38
    Heater,

    Nice summary - why not post it on the techfocusmedia site?

    Ross.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2011-01-23 00:41
    RossH,

    I'm in no mood for signing up and logging into yet another forum.
    Perhaps someone who is registered there would like to cut and paste or paraphrase my summary over there.
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2011-01-23 01:29
    When MS announced that they would port windows to ARM I thought... well they are putting pressure on Intel to cut the power bill of the x86. The long life of the x86 was always due to the software (on cheap hardware). I wonder how their previous ally (software for x86) will be spinned (!) to make it work. 12 years ago there were a pletora on WinCE devices, ARM based, SH-3, MIPS, they are none-existant today. It didn't work. I ask myself how it is going to work out.
  • Toby SeckshundToby Seckshund Posts: 2,027
    edited 2011-01-23 02:28
    I would have very narrow time slots to use those chips. Durring the winter months and the summer months one cold or hayfever episode and the poor little mites would get sneezed out of sight.
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2011-01-23 03:38
    If I remember correctly the MC68331/2 from some 15 years ago used to have a RISC processor as their timer controller. It had some 2KBytes RAM dedicated to it. The idea is not at all new :)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-23 04:30
    Heater. wrote: »
    Batang,

    No. That question indicates that you have overlooked some of the key features of the Prop as well.

    With the Prop I get:
    1) Eight cores all running with deterministic timing.
    2) Cores have their own RAM and round robin access to shared RAM. They can run in total isolation for speed or access shared RAM with no timing contention jitter.
    2) Eight cores means not having to use interrupts.
    3) Not having interrupts means I get to use the deterministic timing without worrying how tasks disturb each other timing wise.
    4) Result: I can wiggle the pins to drive esoteric hardware, promptly respond to external events, or generate weird signals all very easily.

    With the ARM I would be bogged down in interrupts and timing issues trying to do anything complicated on the I/O core.

    Conclusion: So far no ARM is any threat to the Prop (or XMOS).

    The ARM Cortex architecture offers fully deterministic instruction and interrupt timing!

    Also, code can be written in C whereas the Propeller needs assembler to make use of its performance and deterministic features.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2011-01-23 04:44
    Leon,
    The ARM Cortex architecture offers fully deterministic instruction and interrupt timing!
    Excellent. I don't have much a clue about the ARM instruction set despite having used them for numerous embedded products. Isn't C great:)

    Still, that's only part of the equation as you know. Deterministic timing for multiple activities mandates multiple processors (or hardware scheduling of multiple deterministic threads), the non-use of interrupts, tight coupling to the I/O to the CPU, your own memory to play in etc. Features that the Prop and the XMOS have but current ARMS do not.

    Of course, given a fast enough CPU and memory you don't need any of that for some real-time jobs. But for any-given level of technology it always wins.

    Thing is I compare a Prop and an XMOS, and other multi-core mcu's to FPGA's (or even discreet logic) rather than tradition compute platforms. What we are doing is replacing FPGA logic blocks with whole processors.

    ARM is no threat to that market.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2011-01-23 05:09
    Ale:

    Re: MS and ARM.
    It didn't work. I ask myself how it is going to work out.

    Aside:

    Years ago the company I worked for had a brilliant idea for an embedded product and started on developing its software using Wince. That just did not work. Just as they were about to give up on the idea I was called into the team and we save the whole project by migrating to VxWorks. The later generations of that product were migrated to Linux.

    MS is late to the party. They now see the world swimming in mobile devices based on Android or Symbian or whatever. They see that the traditional PC as we know it will be extinct fairly soon. They want part of that action in a growing market.

    There is no point trying though, they can't beat "free".

    Aside:

    For many years I have thought that those big box PC you see in the stores are pointlessly huge, badly made and invariably ugly. Not to mention noisy. How is it that these dinosaurs have survived into 2011?
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2011-01-23 06:49
    Heater: How did they survived? price. That's all that it is.
    I have here this Mac mini. Really tiny (do not forget the power brick this model has) besides me. It does more than the big ugly beige box at work. two times more :). I fail to see why would someone today buy a big box machine, it just makes no sense from a space point of view, but they are cheaper. These minis lost they appeal through the years... from 500 € to > 700...
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2011-01-23 07:08
    Ale,

    Yes indeed, built down to a price, and it shows. I guess I never thought about it much, never having bought a PC, they just come free from work and get used no matter how hideous they are. But then I'm odd, I've never bought a T.V. or VCR or microwave either.

    BUT times they are a changin'. My Android phone has more memory and horse power than the PCs I was using a short while back. I'm seriously looking at the idea of using a credit card sized Beagle Board or such as a replacement for that PC megalith I'm typing this on.

    M.S. wants to go with me. Good luck.
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2011-01-23 08:21
    Built to a price. Everyone complains about the price of Apple's Macs but... have been using a Vaio for some time and regretting every minute not getting an Apple...(I bought it because they just do not have a quadcore laptop).
  • BigFootBigFoot Posts: 259
    edited 2011-01-23 09:05
    We took a close look at the A8 (Am3517) for our next PoS Terminal. We decided to wait for the Prop II
    though because we can use allot of the code that we have written for the Prop I. Also if Chip figured
    correctly the Prop II should be around $5 less.

    We plan on selling 1000 to 2000 of these terminals a year so this cost difference is substantial.
  • Kevin WoodKevin Wood Posts: 1,266
    edited 2011-01-23 13:16
    heater wrote:
    BUT times they are a changin'. My Android phone has more memory and horse power than the PCs I was using a short while back. I'm seriously looking at the idea of using a credit card sized Beagle Board or such as a replacement for that PC megalith I'm typing this on.

    Heater, the irony of this statement in light of your defense of the Propeller against the ARM is the perfect counterpoint to your argument. :)
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2011-01-23 13:43
    Kevin Wood,

    I'm not sure that any of my statements can be taken as "defense of the Propeller against the ARM".
    In my mind they are almost not comparable, apples and oranges, they are built with different purposes in mind.
    ARM is a general purpose CPU, you know, for building computers.
    Prop is a micro-controller, a replacement for logic or FPGA's,

    I have said here from time to time that an ideal match would be an ARM and it's memory on a board along with a Prop or two. The ARM handles the big application code, the Prop(s) handle the serious deterministic real-time stuff. In fact the ARM on such a board would be running Linux and provide the development environment for the Prop(s):)

    Just recently I refined that idea to, "lets have an ARM core on the Prop III". Best of both worlds on a single chip.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-23 13:59
    ARM is the dominant architecture in 32-bit embedded applications. What about all those ARM7, Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M3 MCUs from companies like NXP and ST?

    As I said previously, ARM Cortex chips offer fully deterministic I/O and interrupt handling. There isn't much point in using them with Propeller devices.

    I can't see the Propeller replacing FPGAs. XMOS chips were designed for that sort of thing, though.
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