The Spark Gap - Episode 16

The Spark Gap · 1 Oct 2014 · 31m

What this episode covers

Hosts Carl and Corey discuss the newly announced Arm Cortex-M7 microcontroller, analyzing its performance metrics, instruction set architecture, and market positioning relative to the Cortex-M4 and application processors like the Raspberry Pi's ARM11. They compare STMicroelectronics' STM32F7 series, which implements the M7 core, against Microchip's PIC32MZ series, noting the latter's lower performance and significant silicon errata issues. The conversation highlights the blurring line between microcontrollers and microprocessors, with the M7 offering high performance suitable for complex IoT and embedded applications, though potentially at the cost of power efficiency compared to lower-end M0/M4 parts.

Mentioned

Companies
Arm, Microchip, STMicroelectronics
Products
STM32F407, STM32F765, PIC32MZ, Raspberry Pi
Chips
Cortex-M7, Cortex-M4, Cortex-M0, ARM11

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