Choosing a Microcontroller Brand

found one performance figure for Cortex M0: 0.9 Mips / MHz. At 48 MHz hat would give you ~ 43 MIPS vs. 20.

Again citing the datasheet:

Execute from flash; CPU at 48 MHz – 13.8 mA (Max)

This discussion seems to me a sort of competition to demonstrate something

I mena, it is not the case to make too much simplifications. I have one of the JTag from Segger, one smaller and a couple of other programmers. Luckily in most of the cases these investments has been part of the clients development costs, but things are not so simple. If you want to program and work on your project, the better is that you have not hundred of issues depending from other external factors. I only saw the segger JTag working fine from linux command line. Debug sessions are long to setup. especially if you try experimenting or working on different processors. Nordic is the only one that also recommend the JTAG for debugging only. The advantage of the specific programmers (e.g. the MKII for the AVR series instead of the Nordig programmer etc.) is that from the ide, where you see the code, syntax coloured, breakpoint, emulation, fast and reliable help online and so on, not last including a number of useful libraries from the producer, you need - unfortunately - their specific programmer in most of the cases.

Instead if your game is not to develop something specific but to play with the features of the processor (but it seems that it is not the case) any way to make tests is good.

Enrico.

This discussion seems to me a sort of competition to demonstrate something

No, I am not into sales.

But frankly I decided that I want to develop with ARM (Cortex M* especially) and there has been no argument for an other architecture I could not counter with an ARM device. MSP has low power? ARM is within a few percent points. 8-Bit uses less RAM? Thumb is the answer. And so on. Of course if you are experienced in one architecture it is hard to switch. But if you start from scratch I see no reason choosing something other than ARM. But that's my opinion which I am offering here for evaluation.

I have not considered this option at all... I think the no one of use here is into sales.

I agree with this, but I think - as fas as my personal experience teach me - that this concept is working only for periods. When all seems perfectly working, the choices has been done and you say ok, now I have the good platform to make all ... A stupid post somewhere start alerting your that there is a sort of new tehcnology or new stuff or something that until that moment was impossible to propose seems now affordable ... So the restarting is to take in account. Always.

oh that's so true!

but that's the nature of IT. We try to stick with something while the world keeps turning.

Inevitably we all bring our own prejudices so apologies for mine in advance, please you can take what you can from it.

I design micro based systems for a living and almost always end up using an ST ARM based micro controller.  I used to use AVRs and Silabs 8051 based parts but the ARMs have left them both way behind except for one or two very special applications.

I use the Keil software tool set (fully paid for version which is >£5k) but you can use it for free with up to 32k code size. Several of my customers use the free version. You can buy a basic debugger/programmer from ST for about £18 or a knockoff of the Keil Ulink for the same money or the real thing for about £200. (Or a really nice Lauterbach debugger for about £2k). Several of the ST dev boards have a built in ST link which gives you programming and debugging.

If you don't like the Keil tools there are GCC based options, some of which are supported by ST. The nice thing about the ST range of ARM processors is that it's huge, they are cheap with cheap dev tools and wide acceptance and use (which makes it easier to get community based help.)

Having said all that about ST, I think (but don't know because I haven't used them) that TI and Freescale both have very comprehensive offerings of parts and free dev tools.

NXP have some nice hardware but the free dev tools are too Mbed based for my liking (this might be wrong - check if important - I have used NXP chips but with the Keil tools.)

You asked in your original question which 'brand' and this is important - ARM is just the core (as others have mentioned) but once you pick a chip manufacturer (ST, Freescale, TI, whoever) you get to know the peripherals and the way the support libraries work etc and this always makes you inclined to stick with another part from the same source.

If you use generic software tools (Keil, IAR, GCC (with or without commercial add ons)) it's easier to swap chip vendors if you need to.

MK

I use Silicon Labs, but that's because the place I work uses Silicon Labs exclusively. In general I offer a different opinion than everyone else so far, and that opinion is: it doesn't matter. I find it's the same question as should I program in assembly or in C. Use C, since it will move across platforms easily. Think about the microcontrollers the same way. Understanding the big picture of what a microcontroller does and how it does it will significantly reduce any learning curve. As for the IDEs, they all do the same thing as well. A quick look through a getting started guide is usually enough to get up and going. The number of application notes for each device and sample code makes it quick to setup hardware peripherals easily and quickly. Depending upon the embedded system, you'll probably spend more time developing an interface or a communications protocol than actually coding the micro's peripherals. This is just my opinion though, so take it as that.

One board I always love to use is the Parallax.

www.parallax.com

Dale

Is the "thumb" and STM device?  Can you post a link?