Xmos As General microcontroller future??

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pearlt
Junior Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:50 am

Xmos As General microcontroller future??

Post by pearlt »

I wonder xmos future as general microcontroller chip ??
In my thinking xmos is specialised at audio application and New product is focused at audio application.
Before My application is based Arm cortex-M3 .
Xmos Have a plan for new general micro controller (ethernet application )??

Thanks for reading


jakeh
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Jul 28, 2017 9:55 am

Post by jakeh »

Hi Pearlt,

Although many of our products are focused on audio applications, the xCore itself is a general purpose microcontroller.
This can be seen in our flexible IO which can be used to drive microphones, speakers, or network interfaces.

Kind Regards,
Jake
MuellerNick
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Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 9:33 am

Post by MuellerNick »

My personal opinion:
If you look back a few years, XMOS had a focus on motor control. So audio is just one application.

I also wouldn't call the XMOS "general microcontroller". Not enough RAM, no fast USARTs etc. Clearly depends on what you want!

But where the XMOS really is standing out from the crowd is flexible fast digital signal IO and predictable timing. I look at the XMOS more like a "software FPGA" than a microcontroller.
Currently, I'm just playing around at home. But it looks like (and I'd love to) I can start a project at work with an XMOS. The XMOS will be just the front end to digital signals (1 MHz clock rate) that need to be analyzed for their very precise timing (10 ns). And with their cores, I can handle several channels in parallel, without loosing precision and screwing timing with interrupts.

I'm not aware of any processor being able to do that. **Brilliant**

Nick
Gothmag
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Posts: 129
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 3:50 pm

Post by Gothmag »

The XMOS has any peripherals you want and can manage them at high speeds. I use I2C at 1.2mhz and it works just fine(as a slave no less). You can have a UART at high speed as well. I think the misconception is that since it is all software it's not as good but being able to have multiple fast threads is incredibly useful for a general microcontroller especially when your peripherals are so configurable. With up to 256kb ram it's just fine there, if you need more you can get sram and interface with them at high speed. The only real issue is they do not currently have a board small or cheap enough to be used like many other microcontrollers.

They have the XE(F) line as well which supports ethernet. You can check out the explorerkit for a reference design. I think it's a nice board but much too large and don't care for the designators not being their C names(1A, 1B, 4A, 4B...) but it works well and can be powered by an external supply or USB and has the Xtag3 included.
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