Low cost Processors available in market...

[embeddedlover]

Hi,

I wanted to know about the low cost microprocessors available in market.

For example, I have chosen MPC8306 for my application where each piece costs me $19.06

Are there any processors available in market in the range of $10 and less with reasonable clock speed. I wanted the cost on piece-to-piece basis and not in bulk quantity.

 

[horace1]

the MPC8306 is a fairly high power microcontroller with Ethernet, USB, QUICC engine, etc so hence its price.
There are plenty of cheaper microcontrollers but the specification could well be lower, e.g. Microchip's PIC series
**broken link removed**

You need to specify your requirements (program memory, RAM, EEPROM, IO devices, speed, etc) then look for devices which satisfy the specification.
I would tend to chose a more powerful device than the basic requirements to give expandability and flexibility - cutting down when producing thousands of units.

 

[nandhu015]

Without specifying your needs no one can guide you properly.

 

[embeddedlover]

Thank you for your replies....

I am looking for a microprocessor and not controller.

The processor must include following interfaces:

1. Memory interface (DDR3, flash memory interface - NAND Flash controller, SD card interface)
2. ADC
3. UART, SPI, I2C, ETHERNET, USB interface
4. Camera interface
5. CAN interrface
6. Display Controller

* Will be using DDR3800 module for this 100MHz clock would be enough isn't it?
* All the other modules can be operated at around 100MHz aren't they?
Taking all these cases my processor can operate below 200MHz.

Can you now suggest a processor?

 

[horace1]

your original proposal of a MPC8306 should meet the requirements.
or a PIC32
**broken link removed**

with graphics
Microchip Technology Inc. is a Leading Provider of Microcontroller and Analog Semiconductors, providing low-risk product development, lower total system cost and faster time to market for thousands of diverse customer applications worldwide.

or an ARM
ARM9 Processor Family - ARM

what is the camera interface?

initially I would tend to get a development board to evaluate the ideas.

 

[srizbf]

seems that no processor with all features specified for 8306 is available.

but you can get microcontrollers with majority of your requirement.
you have most of the interface available in ARM based controllers.

if you have already the tools for development for 8306 ,
then per piece cost is not going to decide the final product cost.
otherwise heavy cost for the tools will have a say .

for ARM you have lesscost and free development tools available.

a device (procesor or controller ) that meets most of the requirement with less development cost is the solution.

 

[embeddedlover]

what is the camera interface?

Generally, camera can be interfaced to processor using camera serial interface or camera parallel interface. It is basically a I2C interface. By camera interface here i mean image processing capabilities., i.e., DSP functionality

initially I would tend to get a development board to evaluate the ideas.

This was what i was looking for. Can you suggest any low cost evaluation boards?

but you can get microcontrollers with majority of your requirement.
you have most of the interface available in ARM based controllers.

The problem is that with microcontrollers we don't have the high end memory interfaces.

device (procesor or controller ) that meets most of the requirement with less development cost is the solution.

I know ARM costs less. But memory interfaces has been a problem. Any other suggestions?

 

[horace1]

the memory interface is a problem!
how about AXIS processors
**broken link removed**

 

[embeddedlover]

how about AXIS processors

It seem's the products are discontinued...

---------- Post added at 15:24 ---------- Previous post was at 15:23 ----------

But the AXIS processors perfectly suit the application of me with minimal of features.

---------- Post added at 15:25 ---------- Previous post was at 15:24 ----------

Looking for such kind of processors at low cost

 

[horace1]

I have not used the AXIS processors for a couple of years - as you say it appears they are no longer available!

have a look at Texas, some of them support DDR3
Digital Signal Processing (DSP) | Texas Instruments

they make some good development kits. However, they can be expensive, the last one I bought was over £4K (it had a 64Mb/s ADC and DAC daughter board)

 

[embeddedlover]

Development kits are too costly.

AM1806 processor which is ARM9 based seems to be low cost one. but it only supports DDR2. even there is no display controller

 

[horace1]

could you use a laptop with a 100baseT connection to something like a PIC32 which would handle none laptop IO such as SPI, I2C, CANBUS etc.
I have implemented projects with dsPICs acquiring data and processing (FFTs etc) and then sending results over ethernet to laptop for further processing and display (usually by Matlab or Octave)

 

[embeddedlover]

Yes indeed, but i need to develop this application from scratch. Intially, i have to find out all the possible options. then i can jump to high-end things.

It will be very useful if you can suggest me more low cost processors as per your experience.

 

[horace1]

when I need high power I have either used the Texas TMS320C674x DSPs with floating point processor or a laptop PC connected via 10baseT to a PIC24 or dsPIC for SPI, Canbus, etc. Today I would probably use a laptop connected to a PIC32 via 100baseT.

 

[embeddedlover]

If we segragate Processors into Automotive market, communciations, Multimedia, Industrial Control, etc

Can we divide major players in market (ex: Texas instruments) for these fields and processor types for each.....?