Re: What is happening to Atmel EEPROMs?

"Peter" <> wrote in message
news:...
> They have doubled their prices and the lead times are 18 weeks.
>
> Yet, others are making them OK.
>
> Are Atmel trying to get out of the business?
> x----------x

At one point Microchip was trying to buy Atmel. What ever happened to that?

On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:19:46 -0800, "Bob Eld" <>
wrote:

>
>"Peter" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>> They have doubled their prices and the lead times are 18 weeks.
>>
>> Yet, others are making them OK.
>>
>> Are Atmel trying to get out of the business?
>> x----------x
>
>At one point Microchip was trying to buy Atmel. What ever happened to that?

It fell through.

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/corporate/v...nse_10_29.html

"Spehro Pefhany" <> wrote in message news:...
> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:19:46 -0800, "Bob Eld" <>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Peter" <> wrote in message
>>news:. ..
>>> They have doubled their prices and the lead times are 18 weeks.

Is this limited to EEPROM/Memory only or uCPU as well?

Definitely worth considering getting out of AVR.
Do NPX ARM come with on-chip FLASH?

M

"TheM" <> wrote:

>"Spehro Pefhany" <> wrote in message news:...
>> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:19:46 -0800, "Bob Eld" <>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"Peter" <> wrote in message
>>>news: ...
>>>> They have doubled their prices and the lead times are 18 weeks.
>
>Is this limited to EEPROM/Memory only or uCPU as well?
>
>Definitely worth considering getting out of AVR.
>Do NPX ARM come with on-chip FLASH?

Yes, all of them have 128 bit wide flash that allows zero waitstate
execution at the maximum CPU clock.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

"Nico Coesel" <> wrote in message news:...
> "TheM" <> wrote:
>
>>"Spehro Pefhany" <> wrote in message news:...
>>> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:19:46 -0800, "Bob Eld" <>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>"Peter" <> wrote in message
>>>>news: m...
>>>>> They have doubled their prices and the lead times are 18 weeks.
>>
>>Is this limited to EEPROM/Memory only or uCPU as well?
>>
>>Definitely worth considering getting out of AVR.
>>Do NPX ARM come with on-chip FLASH?
>
> Yes, all of them have 128 bit wide flash that allows zero waitstate
> execution at the maximum CPU clock.

Not bad, I ordered a couple books on ARM off Amazon, may get into it finally.
From what I see they are same price as AVR mega, low power and much faster.
And NXP is very generous with samples.

M

On Mar 26, 11:55*am, Peter <nos...@nospam9876.com> wrote:
> *"TheM" <DontNeedS...@test.com> wrote:
> >"Spehro Pefhany" <speffS...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote in messagenews:5elnq5d2ncjvs91v1cu5dmt5tbntuhefg3@4ax .com...
> >> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:19:46 -0800, "Bob Eld" <nsmontas...@yahoo.com>
> >> wrote:
>
> >>>"Peter" <nos...@nospam9876.com> wrote in message
> >>>news: ...
> >>>> They have doubled their prices and the lead times are 18 weeks.
>
> >Is this limited to EEPROM/Memory only or uCPU as well?
>
> >Definitely worth considering getting out of AVR.
> >Do NPX ARM come with on-chip FLASH?
>
> >M
>
> I simply cannot believe Atmel are going to drop all the AVR users in
> the sh*t.
>
> I've been in electronics design and manufacturing since the mid 1970s
> and have seen these "crises" so many times.
>
> At one time we used to buy a 74LS245 for 20 pence and months later
> they were £2.50 - a 12x rise.
>
> How did this happen? Did the whole world suddenly want a 74LS245?
>
> No.
>
> What happened is that there was an over-supply of 74LS (following,
> guess what, a previous price bump) and the prices plummetted. So the
> distis, being cynical bastards, sent out their sales reps to spread
> stories of "74LS going on allocation".
>
> "Allocation" is the word every buyer dreads because it means you don't
> get a lead time quoted, so basically you have to massively over-order,
> with several distis at the same time.
>
> The stock of course arrives, some months later, and then you are
> over-stocked for a few years
>
> And the cycle repeats but the cynical bastard salesmen collected their
> commissions, left those companies, and are now marketing managers
> So they never face the music.
>
> Currently, there is a lot of crap being spread around about Allocation
> yet again, and sure enough people are starting to buy into it, and
> lead times are growing.
>
> However, interestingly, we are likely to end up in a situation where
> our main products will be in two versions, one using the Hitachi
> H8/323 and the other using an Atmega128 (or whatever), but externally
> they will be exactly identical functionally. I have 5-10 year stock of
> the H8 in a safe, and will keep a similar stock of the ATmega.
>
> x----------x



Was that back when supposedly the encapsulation epoxy plant burned
down? Maybe that was different 'crisis'. lol!

"1 Lucky Texan" <> wrote in message news:5271b743-9098-4a1c-aeff-...
On Mar 26, 11:55 am, Peter <nos...@nospam9876.com> wrote:

>> I've been in electronics design and manufacturing since the mid 1970s
>> and have seen these "crises" so many times.
>>
>> At one time we used to buy a 74LS245 for 20 pence and months later
>> they were £2.50 - a 12x rise.
>>
>> How did this happen? Did the whole world suddenly want a 74LS245?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> What happened is that there was an over-supply of 74LS (following,
>> guess what, a previous price bump) and the prices plummetted. So the
>> distis, being cynical bastards, sent out their sales reps to spread
>> stories of "74LS going on allocation".
>>
>> "Allocation" is the word every buyer dreads because it means you don't
>> get a lead time quoted, so basically you have to massively over-order,
>> with several distis at the same time.
>>
>> The stock of course arrives, some months later, and then you are
>> over-stocked for a few years
>>
>> And the cycle repeats but the cynical bastard salesmen collected their
>> commissions, left those companies, and are now marketing managers
>> So they never face the music.
>>
>> Currently, there is a lot of crap being spread around about Allocation
>> yet again, and sure enough people are starting to buy into it, and
>> lead times are growing.

>Was that back when supposedly the encapsulation epoxy plant burned
>down? Maybe that was different 'crisis'. lol!

I remember RAM becoming more expensive after each major earthquake
in Asia some years ago.

M

1 Lucky Texan <> wrote

>Was that back when supposedly the encapsulation epoxy plant burned
>down? Maybe that was different 'crisis'. lol!

I recall that !!

Yeah, very likely.

A Jap earthquake was another good one for lead times. The distis jump
on anything.

"TheM" <> wrote:

>"Nico Coesel" <> wrote in message news:...
>> "TheM" <> wrote:
>>
>>>"Spehro Pefhany" <> wrote in message news:...
>>>> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:19:46 -0800, "Bob Eld" <>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>"Peter" <> wrote in message
>>>>>news: om...
>>>>>> They have doubled their prices and the lead times are 18 weeks.
>>>
>>>Is this limited to EEPROM/Memory only or uCPU as well?
>>>
>>>Definitely worth considering getting out of AVR.
>>>Do NPX ARM come with on-chip FLASH?
>>
>> Yes, all of them have 128 bit wide flash that allows zero waitstate
>> execution at the maximum CPU clock.
>
>Not bad, I ordered a couple books on ARM off Amazon, may get into it finally.
>From what I see they are same price as AVR mega, low power and much faster.
>And NXP is very generous with samples.

The books on ARM may be too generic. Most of the things you need to
know are in the user manual and the datasheet. NXP's Cortex based
LPC1000 series need no assembly at all to get running. Even interrupt
routines do not need special care.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

TheM skrev:
> "Nico Coesel" <> wrote in message news:...
>> "TheM" <> wrote:
>>
>>> "Spehro Pefhany" <> wrote in message news:...
>>>> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:19:46 -0800, "Bob Eld" <>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "Peter" <> wrote in message
>>>>> news:...
>>>>>> They have doubled their prices and the lead times are 18 weeks.
>>> Is this limited to EEPROM/Memory only or uCPU as well?
>>>
>>> Definitely worth considering getting out of AVR.
>>> Do NPX ARM come with on-chip FLASH?
>> Yes, all of them have 128 bit wide flash that allows zero waitstate
>> execution at the maximum CPU clock.
>
> Not bad, I ordered a couple books on ARM off Amazon, may get into it finally.
> From what I see they are same price as AVR mega, low power and much faster.
> And NXP is very generous with samples.
>
> M
>
>

The typical 32 bitters of today are implemented using advanced
flash technologies which allows high density memories in small chip
areas, but they are not low power.

The inherent properties of the process makes for high leakage.
When you see power consumption in sleep of around 1-2 uA,
this is when the chip is turned OFF.
Only a small part of the chip is powered, RTC and a few other things.

When you implement in a 0.25u process or higher, you can have the chip
fully initialized and ready to react on input while using
1-2 uA in sleep.

That is a big difference.

While the NXP devices gets zero waitstate from 128 bit bus,
this also makes them extremely power hungry.
An LPC ARM7 uses about 2 x the current of a SAM7.
It gets higher performance in ARM mode.

The ARM mode has a price in code size, so if you want more features,
then you better run in Thumb mode. The SAM7 with 32 bit flash is
actually faster than the LPC when running in Thumb mode,
(at the same frequency) since the SAM7 uses as 33 MHz flash,
while the LPC uses a 24 Mhz flash.
In thumb mode, the 32 bit access gives you two instructions
per cycle so in average this gives you 1 instruction per clock on the SAM7.

Less waitstates means higher performance.
By copying a few 32 bit ARM routines to SRAM,
you can overcome that limitation.
You can get slightly higher top frequency out of the LPC,
but that again increases the power consumption.


For Cortex-M3 I did some test on the new SAM3, which can be
configured to use both 64 bit or 128 bit memories.
With a 128 bit memory, you can wring about 5% extra performance
out of the chip compared to 64 bit operation.
From a power consumption point of view it is probably better
to increase the clock frequency by 5% than to enable the 128 bit mode.
It is therefore only the most demanding applications that have
any use for the 128 bit memory.

Testing on other Cortex-M3 chips indicate similar results.

Someone told me that they tried executing out of SRAM on an STM32
and this was actually slower than executing out of flash.
Executing out of external memory also appears to be a problem,
since there is no cache/burst and bandwidth seems to be lower
than equivalent ARM7 devices.

Current guess is that the AHB bus has some delays due to
synchronization. Also if you execute out of SRAM
you are going to have conflicts with data access.
Something which is avoided when you execute out of flash.


Would be curious to hear about other peoples experience about this.

Best Regards
Ulf Samuelsson