The rate at which ARM®-based microcontroller devices are being brought to the market is staggering. The use of a common family of compatible cores with different performance levels brings many benefits to embedded developers looking for a new device on which to base their new product design or new technology platform. However, in the rush to bring a device to the market microcontroller suppliers face the dilemma of spending time fine-tuning their peripheral set and architecture enhancements around the ARM core or, potentially, losing market share from loyal customers who needs devices right now as they are embarking on new designs. This is very much the case with ARM’s Cortex-M0/M0+ architecture. Realising that some of the power saving and peripheral enhancements incorporated in 8-bit devices over the past years have been highly valued by customers and that custom tailoring is needed to make the best possible product on any platform has made some microcontroller suppliers take a more thorough approach to bringing the latest ARM Cortex®-M0+ device to market. Atmel is one of them. |