Advice for manager: should I pick Tensilica 212GP or ARM9?

[boardlanguage]

foxabilo

Pretend I'm a semi-technical 'manager', and for a USB2 device application, I need to choose between Tensilica and ARM9. The microcontroller needs to be 'reasonably fast' (i.e. faster than ARM7TDMI), to handle interrupt-based data-transfer between two embedded peripherals. (Ths application is kind of like a USB2 WiFi adapter -- the MCU manages data-exchange between the USB2 domain and the 802.11g domain.)

Which processor is better? In terms of popularity, I know Tensilica is cheaper, but I thought ARM was much more popular. For example, if I need to hire consultants to do firmware development and stuff, is it eaiser to find skilled ARM developers than Tensilica developers?

In terms of performance, how do the ARM922T/926EJ and Tensilica 212GP compare in the real-world?

And what about embedded O/S support? I know ARM has eCos, uC-OS/II, ucLinux, and lots of commercial O/S support (VNX, VX Works, etc.) How does the Tensilica compare in this area?

 

[foxabilo]

tensilica 212gp linux

ARM9 hands down, you can even get a linux distro to run on it then you can widen your available pool of techs able to code for it.

 

[boardlanguage]

Re: Advice for manager: should I pick Tensilica 212GP or ARM

ARM9 hands down...

Thanks! Could you go into specific reasons for selecting ARM9? Is it because the development environment is that much better? The level of embedded O/S support?

Processor performance?

 

[foxabilo]

The ARM9 range has a much wider group of enthusiasts and engineers, the fact you can run linux on it says alot, you now have an industry standard operating system to run your application on, Windows Mobile runs on them too, forget about chip specific programmers with the ARM9 you can almost forget the device is not a regular desktop pc, windows mobile has its own free C++ compiler for developers to use and a free emulator, similar packages can be found for linux under ARM. The chip has a strong heritage right from the year dot as far as micro cpu's go and is the chip of choice for PDA makers, GPS navigation devices, basicaly any system where you need a high level OS running standard software.

 

[boardlanguage]

Re: Advice for manager: should I pick Tensilica 212GP or ARM

So you are saying that Tensilica 212GP cannot run Linux (because 212GP lacks onboard MMU)? Ok, it sounds like you're saying ARM9 is the better choice for high-level operating-systems (where strong user-interface is important.)

In an embedded-device, where the MCU will mostly be doing device-control and protocol management (like in my Wifi/802.11g <-> USB2 adapter), is the ARM9 still a better choice? Tensilica's website has some white-papers showing the 212GP's silicon performance&area superiority over selected ARM9 models.

 

[foxabilo]

If your doing protocol and device Control use a PIC/Atmel, if you need the power the 212GP has then you should be going for the ARM9 anyway. In no technical requirement document would I ever place a 212GP. The device is very powerful in its own right but if you need high speed device control get a dsPIC protocol management so long as its not gig bit ethernet, can be handled by anything from a ATiny and PIC12 to ATMega and 18F PIC.

We have a project that uses a FPGA to real-time Mpeg4 compress video data and we use an ARM9 as control and interface for it., DMA memory handling allows the ARM9 to perform real-time IO with the host while allowing the FPGA access to SRAM chips. I am very pleased with its performance.

 

[boardlanguage]

Re: Advice for manager: should I pick Tensilica 212GP or ARM

foxabilo, your feedback has been most helpful, thank you.

As I said earlier, our customer wants technical advice on an communications ASIC. They narrowed down their selection between two synthesizeable IP-cores: the Tensilica 212GP and the ARM92x. The MCUs would be 'embedded' on the ASIC (i.e., not a separate off-the-shelf standard product IC.)

As you can tell, none of us has any real clue on choosing the CPU. They contracted an independent company to review the two CPUs, in terms of how well tehy can perform the protocol-translation task (mostly USB2 <-> 802.11n, but some other stuff too.) Anyway, I read that review; it covered the (expected) MIPs of each CPU, die-area, power-consumption. All in all, it seemed like a good technical overview, and it concluded the 212GP was slightly better (due to higher expected performance.)

I know the ARM is more popular than the Tensilica -- but I don't have enough experience to contradict the original review's conclusion. the review was written by people more experienced than me. But I do appreciate a 'second opinion' on the matter! For example, the review didn't cover ease of development or tool-flow at all. I think these are important, too, since the firmware development is just as important as hardware.[/b]

 

[foxabilo]

Hi,

If you should need a commercial review with a larger coverage of key indicators such as ease of development and support then BentleyRC can be contracted and I can put one of our engineers to work for you. But as ever the forums are free

I hope your evaluation and recommendations go well and your end product is a success.