
Freescale Shrinks World’s Smallest ARM-Based MCU by 15% - brchen
http://media.freescale.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=196520&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1903076
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hershel
Another interesting small mcu is the nrf51822 which is 3.5x3.8mm , it includes
bluetooth low energy transceiver and dc-dc converter + 256K/16K flash/ram and
it supports the mbed/arduino. It would be also possible to write/adapt a low
energy mesh protocol for it.

Another interesting one: stm32f401, cortex-m4 ,84mhz,512KB flash, 96 KB ram,
low power and can run python(micro python) - at only 3X3 mm.

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Qworg
Small enough to be installed in the cables of your device.

Freescale's best trick with these is putting them in business cards (between
thin plastic).

~~~
31reasons
Don't forget the battery, wifi and other electronics needed for fully
functional system. It would make the entire device 5 times bigger. But its
getting there when the entire system is as small as this.

~~~
FigBug
I don't think you'd put a full system in a cable, but you'd make smart cables
like Apple's lightning cable or their video adapters that actually convert
signals.

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jmpe
Notice that they explicitly mention IoT, a week after Atmel announced a
similar controller for an IoT module:

[http://atmelcorporation.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/atmels-
smar...](http://atmelcorporation.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/atmels-smartconnect-
targets-the-iot/)

~~~
zokier
Freescale seems to mention IoT only because it is the buzzword du jour, there
doesn't seem to be anything that makes this new chip particularly IoT
oriented. It doesn't even have any built-in internet (or any network for that
matter) connectivity, which is kinda important for IoT.

In comparison Atmels use of IoT in that case seems more justified by the fact
that they are marketing a solution with network connectivity. And imho the
integration of connectivity and microcontroller is far more significant than
15% reduction of already ittybitty package size.

~~~
joezydeco
Freescale's IoT angle has been delivering the cheapest MIPS per watt. IoT
isn't all about wireless communication in their eyes - you also need a capable
data acquisition and processing system that can run on sub-milliamp power for
long periods of time.

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pasbesoin
These recent developments keep reminding me of the "dust" in Vernor Vinge's "A
Deepness in the Sky". Powered by microwave pulses.

Granted, that dust as described is more capable. But we know how that curve
tends to go.

It seems that the science fiction writers are barely keeping ahead of
"reality", these days. Kind of amazing.

~~~
marshray
What were some of the implications of this dust?

~~~
coryrc
They are sensor nodes and... read the book, it's worth it :)

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zeckalpha
How does this compare to an AVR (other than being a Von Neumann computer)?

~~~
slashdotaccount
AVR's are 8-bit microcontrollers, Cortex-M's are 32-bit and are generally more
powerful and have more features (even the Cortex-M0's) than both AVR's tiny
and mega series.

~~~
FigBug
I wonder if it's the beginning of the end 8-bit and 16-bit micro. Prices of
32-bit micros are so low now, they are so small, it just doesn't seem worth
the hassle of dealing with an 8/16bit. I'm sure they'll exist in legacy
designs for another 20+ years, but new designs? Less and less.

~~~
rational_indian
8 bit code takes much less space than 32bit code. You can almost pack in 2 to
4 times as much code in the same space as fixed instruction width 32bit code.
Perhaps less when compared with ARM thumb but still significant.

~~~
joe_bleau
You'd think, right? Luckily the ARM dudes came up with Thumb-2, so most (all
but 6) of the Cortex-M0+ instructions are actually 16 bit, not 32. (Nice chart
at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-M](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-M)
.)

But what's even more interesting is to actually compile apps and compare code
size. Miro Samek did this for a couple of RTOS-like framesworks and compared
across a mix of 8, 16 and 32 bit micro architectures (PIC, 8051, M8C, 68HC08,
AVR, MSP430, M16C, ARM7 Thumb, and ARM Cortex-M3 Thumb2). For his test, the
MSP430 was the most dense, but Thumb2 wasn't far behind.
([http://embeddedgurus.com/state-space/2009/03/insects-of-
the-...](http://embeddedgurus.com/state-space/2009/03/insects-of-the-computer-
world/))

Of course, there are 4 bit micros out there...

~~~
lgeek
> ARM dudes came up with Thumb-2

I guess I'm nitpicking, but Cortex-M0+ and Cortex-M0 are basically Thumb only.
The only Thumb-2 instructions implemented by these cores are the ones for
barriers and transferring data between general purpose registers and special
registers. These are:

1) Without an equivalent Thumb instruction

2) Required on the ARM architecture

3) A tiny, tiny percentage of instructions executed or just not used by
typical application code.

Regarding the linked test, the toolchain and optimisation flags are going to
make a significant difference. I wonder how GCC (which is free and probably
the most popular) and armcc (which generally produces significantly better
output) would fit in there.

------
ksec
Suggested Price @ 0.75 Per Unit at 100K Batch.

Would Love to get one to play with :D.

~~~
moron4hire
I'd love to have 100 of them! It probably wouldn't be $0.75/ea for only 100,
probably closer to $1.00 each, but still. $100 for 100 MCUs to throw into
projects would be awesome. 48Mhz is a lot of hertz to throw at a lot of
problems.

Hell, at that price, you can afford to do stupid shit with them, like put them
in your friends' LED lightbulbs to screw with them, or build a physical
neural-network computer, just so you can hook up LEDs between all the
interconnects and make a blinklichten display.

The only problem is that they are ball grid array devices. I wouldn't
necessarily say that BGA is impossible for a hobbiest, but typically you're
just not going to find that kind of equipment at your local hackerspace.

~~~
reportingsjr
The listed price is $0.75/ea for 100,000 so at 100 it would probably be around
$2-3/chip. Still pretty darn cheap for what it can do!

~~~
moron4hire
Though, if the goal is to have a really cheap, programmable chip that doesn't
consume a lot of power, then the MSP430 is probably a better bet. 16MHz MCU
with admittedly very little memory of its own for about $0.35/ea for a
thousand.

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dman
What os do people run on this?

~~~
jmpe
an RTOS (uC/OS, Freertos, chibios, ...) or simply a hal such as CMSIS.

~~~
Qworg
Or right on the bare metal.

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ambrop7
For anyone wishing to play with Freescale ARM, a cheap way to get one is the
Teensy boards, [https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/](https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/)

