Re: ARM LPC22xx development tools

On Feb 8, 8:38 am, "Tom Lucas"
<news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Of course, if you want to use the GNU ARM tools, you don't have to buy
them anywhere. You can download them free atwww.gnuarm.com

This is true but the small outlay for Rowley's IDE is definitely worth
it. Of course, "worth" is all relative to the available budget. Also I'm
pretty sure it is cheaper than 1/3 of the cost of the other two.

To be worth it, it would need to save me about a week of development
time (I'm young and just started freelancing, so I don't charge very
much) over the life of a six-month project, as opposed to using the
free version of the tools combined with Eclipse. In what ways could
the Rowley development tools save me time? I imagine imagine most of
the time is saved by having a support system available if I ever have
any problems and by reducing the amount of time required to set the
tools up, correct?

It was brought to my attention that the microcontroller I use will
need an SDRAM controller, since 4MB of SRAM is expensive (compared to
$1 for SDRAM, at least). I've narrowed my search down to a few
microcontrollers, and I'd love it if I could get some feedback from
the anyone and everyone regarding the merits and pitfalls of these
processors.

Leading the pack, is the Sharp LH79525. This has everything we need,
is fairly inexpensive, and seems to have a decent amount of online
support. However, I've seen a few random postings on the internet
stating that Sharp is discontinuing the BlueStreak line (for instance,
http://www.revely.com/). Is the 79525 a member of the BlueStreak
family, and, if so, is there any truth to these rumors? It seems like
a fairly new chip, so I'd be amazed if they're end-of-lifing it
already.

Next up, we've got the OKI ML674001 and 675001. This chip seems
pretty good, and the price is great, but I've read that OKI's support
for smaller manufacturers is pretty terrible. Also, I couldn't find
much of an online community for this chip, so I'm a bit concerned that
I'll spend a lot of time troubleshooting problems.

The Freescale MCF5270 would be a suitable controller, as well. The
only real problem is that I haven't been able to find a low-cost ($300
or less) development board for it. I know that NetBurner makes
inexpensive boards for them, but they seem to want you to use they're
bundled software, but you have to either use their modules which my
employer doesn't want to do for various reasons, or purchase a site
license, which is out of our price range. Has anyone had success
using their development board for non-NetBurner-based projects? If
so, what tools did you use for debugging? The NetBurner engineer I
wrote to said that they don't have a BDM header on board.

The Freescale MCF5208 would also work well, but I haven't been able to
find a distributor who has the QFP version in stock. All I could find
was a small number of BGA devices at Digikey. I don't want to go
through with the design only to find out later that the QFP is
unavailable. Anyone know of a source for these chips?

Similarly, the Samsung S3C4510 would work well, but again, I haven't
been able to find a vendor who has them in stock. I haven't even
found a vendor who has them in their database, so I don't know how
much they cost, if I could get a hold of them.

The Atmel AT91RM9260 seems like a good part which fits our
specifications. It would probably be overkill for our application,
but at $11 a piece (in quantities of 100), that's perfectly fine.
Like the MCF5270, however, I haven't been able to find an inexpensive
development board. The only one I've found is the evaluation kit
manufactured by Atmel, which costs nearly $700.

Lastly, we've got the NXP LPC2468...sort of. As far as I can tell,
this part is only just being released. None of the major distributors
have them in stock, so I'm assuming that it's still sampling and
hasn't been put into full production yet. I could develop on a
LPC2378, but my main concern is relying on a brand-new chip. I've
read the NXP has a reputation for their Rev. 0 silicon being extremely
buggy (for example, the LPC2378 cannot write to it's external bus).

Thoughts or comments on any of the above microcontrollers would be
greatly appreciated, and will likely be handsomely rewarded in the
afterlife, your next life, or through good karma (depending on your
beliefs).

Cheers,
Alex

.

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