Freescale KINETIS expert online next monday

Hi Gordon - great to see that Freescale is taking Element14 seriouesly

I have a heap of questions for you:

1) How fast will the K10 CPU run out of Flash?

2) When will samples of the K10 be available?  And production?

3) Do you have a suggested debugger/programmer  - like the Cylcone, but for K10

4) Will you be integrating the compiler into the Codewarrior for V10 - if so, when?

5) Why bother with Coldfire+ (all my products are currently based on V1 and S08)

6) Why so much Flash on the K10, when all I can get is 256k on V1?

Best regards, Norman Ballard

Hi Norman,

Good to here from you! Hope you are doing well.  So in summary here are response to your questions:

1) You can run 1st families at 100MHz and execute from Flash with 0 wait states. This is based on contiguous access executing 16bit instructions based on Thumb2 instruction set.

2) K10 samples are orderable just now from Freescale, very limited quantities. We expect to have improved volumes available early 2011.  1st packages to samples will be 144BGA and 144LQFP. Through 1st half 2011 we will support in addition 100- & 80-pin LQFP & 104- & 81-MAPBGA. For larger or smaller packages they will become available in 2nd half 2011. if there is a specific package let me know and I can be more specific and provide part numbers for reference.

3) With our Tower Development platform we will have the OSJTAG interface available.  For target boards there are a range of solutions. Initial one to be supported will be Segger J-Link cable. We will also be supported Cyclone Pro and Multi-Link Cables and other options from other 3rd parties including Green Hills, Lauterbach among others.  It will depend on your key requirements for your efforts.

4) Yes, we will integrated a compiler into CodeWarrior10.0. Official production version is available in January 2011.  We are testing today initial beta releases.

5) ColdFire+ will provide a good range of solutions for cost and power optimized application needs where suppliers have no preference on core, but need a low cost, ultra-low-power solution. We see this platform being very popular for developers looking at consumer targeted portable products.

6) Freescale is targeting the Kinetis family to address the broad line market requirements spanning multiple markets so we have to offer a broad range of memory and package options to address the broadest set of needs. ColdFire is targeted at very specific applications so we optimize the memory and packages to meet those specific set of needs.

If I've missed any poitns or you need more information behind specific points please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thanks & Best Regards,

Gordon

Hi Gordon, Can you explain more about the Low Power capabilities of this new MCU range and why it is suitable for use in my portable application? Thank you !

Well there are several improvements and new features that Kinetis brings to market.

Firstly as this family is based on a 90nm Thin Film Storage manufacturing process which can reduced the dynamic run current consumption by up to as much as 1/3 or previous manufacturing technologies.  the new Kinetis MCU family consumes as little as 200uA/MHz in run mode with clocks to CPU and all peripherals active.  In addition with the new features of the ARM Cortex M4 Core, specifically the MAC unit, SIMD unit and enhanced DSP instructions, help reduce further the number of cycles needed to process complex algorithms futher reducing the run current consumption.

The other major benefit of the Kinetis range is the range of 10 flexible modes of operation, enabling designs to select the most appropriate mode to optimize the power consumption at any given moment.  The modes of operation are the standard Run, Wait & Stop modes. Plus you have the ability to scale the CPU and peripheral clocks down to 2MHz and enter into Very Low Power Run (VLPR) & Wait Modes (VLPW) and as an extension to these modes there is a Very Low Power Stop Mode.  Then with the additional of the NEW Low Leakage Wake-up Unit LLWU there are a range of modes where by the logic is completely shut down to further reduce leakage and overall power consumption. There are Low Leakage Stop (LLS) & Very Low Leakage Stop 1, 2 & 3 (VLLS1, VLLS2, VLL3). Each offering a different levels of functionality. In the lowest power mode, VLLS3 the Kinetis family will consume as little of 500nA.  The family also supports an extremely fast wake up time of 4uS.

Other features of the Kinetis family include

     - Clock gating, to turn of clocks to unused moduels.

     - Indepent &  secure RTC with a dedicated 32KHz OSC and separate power system

     - Low Voltage Detect

Hope this answers questions.

Best Regards,

Gordon

In preparation for Gordon Padkin's Q and A on Monday those interested in Kinetis should take a look at Freescale's very thorough webpage on the product line, including videos, portfolio part comparisons and info on energy efficiency. The link is here.

Hi Gordon

I've run out of Flash (and MIPs) on the V1 cores, but would like to stay with an embedded processor and it has to be Freescale, so Kinetis has arrived just in time.  I want to get going on a new project with it ASAP.  I am however extremely reluctant to go BGA and so would like to use 144QFP.  Do you know when samples of the K40 will be available in QFP? 

Best regards, Norman

Hi Norman,

We will have samples in Q1 2011of the 144LQFP. How much Flash memory are you looking to use? I can provide a Part Number for sample orders.  Orders can then be loaded via any authorized distributor or via Freescale's on-line tool.

Best Regards,
Gordon

Following up on a recent post Farnell now have in stock the first quantities of Kinetis Tower Systems for rapid product evaluation and prototyping. The orderable part numbers are:

- TWR-K40X256-KIT

- TWR-K60N512-KIT

For those wanting to learn a bit more about the Kinetis family you can sign up for an short training presentation on Freescale:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/training_information.jsp?code=WBNR_KINETIS_ARMCORTEX&tid=mKhp

Hey Gordon, it snowed bad up there?

Are you on the site all day Monday?

Hi Alistair,

Snow isn't so bad in west of scotland so far.  I am around in office all week.

Cheers,
Grdon