Semiconductor Products Insight

With close to 1,800 part numbers, the AVR family takes its origin from Norway where it was designed around 1996. The family is heavy on its 8-bit side – 1,500 part numbers and only 200+ 32-bit parts. The AVR 8-bit are further organized into 5 families (part count in parenthesis):

• tinyAVR (400+) up to 20 MHz, 32 pins, 16kB Flash for the low end, with ADC
• megaAVR (800+) up to 16 MHz, 100 pins, 256kB Flash and a variety of peripherals except Ethernet
• AVR XMEGA (200+) up to 32 MHz, 100 pins, 384kB of Flash with more peripherals, but no Ethernet
• AVR for battery management (10+)
• AVR for automotive (100+) includes an assortment of tinyAVR, megaAVR and AVR XMEGA parts qualified for the auto market.

That is to contrast with the SAM Cortex-M based family, born in 2009 with the SAM3U, that counts now more than 900 parts.
This month, the SAM D09 just joined the long list of Atmel Cortex-M based families. The D09 is a no-frills Cortex-M0+ based with 8/16kB of Flash and a 12-bit ADC running at 48MHz.
Same entry for the SAML22, a brother to the SAML21 fitted with an LCD controller.
In all 17 parts made it out this month.

There were no significant price changes this month.

Long summer for the products. Nothing to declare this month again. The merger with NXP did not get any hurdles so far.There were no significant price changes this month.

We found about 150 products for the Cortex-M based MCU offer from Infineon.
The portfolio of Infineon is split in 2:
The 65nm 32MHz XMC1000 is based on a Cortex-M0 core and is subdivided in 4 families

• XMC1100 embeds up to 64KB of Flash
• XMC1200 adds a 9ch LED controller and 3 analog comparators
• XMC1300 adds a math co-processor, PWM timer and a Hall encoder interface
• XMC1400 is in development and will add more connectivity with larger package options

The XMC4000 is based on the Cortex-M4 and has 4 families as well

• XMC4100/4200 with a 80 MHz core
• XMC4400 pushes the frequency to 120MHz, adds Ethernet
• XMC4500 offers an extra external bus and an SD card interface
• XMC4700 also in development.

The Microchip portfolio is impressive by its sheer size. It is already beyond 10,000 part numbers and this month, grew by close to another 100. The variety of products is mind boggling, and it is no surprise that Microchip is called the king of the 8-bit MCU given half of its portfolio is in this segment. Microchip splits its MCUs into 3 groups (16-bit being a single one):

• 8-bit PIC (4,800), up to 128kB Flash, 100 pins and 16MHz
• PIC10 (100)
• PIC12 (300)
• PIC16 (2,600)
• PIC18 (1,700)
• 16-bit PIC (1,500), up to 512kB Flash, 144 pins and 70MHz
• PIC24F (800)
• PIC24H (200)
• PIC24E (400)
• 16-bit dsPIC (2,100), up to 512kB Flash, 144 pins and 200MHz
• dsPIC30F (100)
• dsPIC33F (900)
• dsPIC33E (1,000)
• 32-bit PIC (1,500), up to 2MB Flash, 144 pins and 200MHz
• PIC32MX (1,200)
• PIC32MZ (200)

NXP was very quiet this month on the product front.Pricewise, there was no significant change.

Renesas released 23 variants of the RL78/G13 with new packages. No change for the RX family.
There was no price change.

Ah, no product change this month for Silicon Labs. The EFM8 MCUs are based on the 8051 core running at 25 or 48 or 50MHz. Power consumption can go as low as 150uA/MHz. The EFM8 comes in 31 different part numbers.No price change.

Although Spansion Cortex-M portfolio is pretty verbose, it actually acquired the initial product line in April 2013 from Fujitsu. The acquisition included the Microcontroller and Analog business for $175M. Spansion was subsequently acquired by Cypress for $1.6B in December last year. The Cortex-M portfolio includes close to 800 part numbers split in 3 families:

• FM0+ based on the Cortex-M0+ and initially the M0, 40MHz
• FM3 based on M3, up to 1MB of Flash, 20, 40, 72 and 144MHz
• FM4 based on M4 running at 200MHz

We are initiating coverage on the STM8 and it is interesting to see the 8-bit space is still very much active, even though the Cortex-M0/+ has made some inroads. The portfolio includes over 400 products all based on the STM8 core.

• STM8L (120) Ultra low power down to 150uA/MHz
• STM8A (170) For the automotive market with LIN or CAN
• STM8S (120) Main stream 130nm at 24MHz

Nothing really exciting this month at ST on the Cortex-M front with a few new package options for the STM32F031, 51 and a 256kB Flash option for the L476

There were some price changes for the L15x at distry, with no clear up or down pattern.

TI released 3 new MSP430 FRAM devices in this quiet month.No price changes this month for TI beyond a few parts at disty.