multi-sourced uP...

[John Larkin]

Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.

 

[Dimiter_Popoff]

On 3/7/2023 17:31, John Larkin wrote:
> Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Dream on .
The one I know of was about 40 years ago, the 6809 was sourced
as 6309 from Hitachi - with some additions but it was a drop-in
replacement allright.
Then the 6800 was cloned by a Bulgarian institute here, I have
even used some. Not sure if it was a mask copy or they designed it,
there were people capable of either.
I also remember Philips had a 68070 part (never touched one), perhaps
they did make a plain 68000 as well.

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.

The thing with ARM for me is similar to the thing I had (have) with
x86. It is a crippled architecture by concept, way too few registers
for a load/store machine (ARM). And only little endian at that...
But given the options on the market what can you do.
Freescale still exist within NXP but nobody is second sourcing
them either, and they make plenty of ARM, too.
I just love it when people say they choose ARM because of the
multiple sources...

------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/

 

[bitrex]

On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:

Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.

Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python. That loss-leader pricing?

 

[bitrex]

On 3/7/2023 11:13 AM, bitrex wrote:

On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python. That loss-leader pricing?

Oh, I see, looks like there\'s no onboard Flash/program memory that\'s
probably how they keep the cost down.

 

[Clive Arthur]

On 07/03/2023 16:13, bitrex wrote:

On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python. That loss-leader pricing?

No, they\'re surplus, left over from the Covid vaccinations.

--
Cheers
Clive

 

[dalai lamah]

Un bel giorno John Larkin digitò:

> Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Do you mean the same microprocessor made by multiple manufacturers? I don\'t
know of any, at least in the last 20 or 30 years. Intel 8086 and Motorola
MC68000 were the last ones I know of.

You may have more luck supporting more part numbers from the same
manufacturer. Especially for small microcontrollers such as the Cortex-M3
or M0, there are manufacturers that have tens of PNs with the same pinout.
For example if you search digikey for \"STM32G0\" you will find 13 different
PNs with the same LQFP48 package. If you design for the smaller part, you
can probably* support all the others just by recompiling.

* Citation needed.

--
Fletto i muscoli e sono nel vuoto.

 

[bitrex]

On 3/7/2023 11:25 AM, Clive Arthur wrote:

On 07/03/2023 16:13, bitrex wrote:
On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given
that it supports C/C++/Python. That loss-leader pricing?

No, they\'re surplus, left over from the Covid vaccinations.

My late father (he passed several years before Covid) used to bring up
that in boot camp at Fort Benning back in \'44 they\'d give them like 8
vaccines in one day. Boots and raincoats only was vaccine-day uniform,
who knows why but that\'s supposedly how it was.

Microchips in vaccines hadn\'t been invented yet but it was apparently
somewhat common to say \"They gave me the needle with the propeller on
it\", \"Did you get the needle with the propeller on it?\" \"Nah man. They
gave me the one with TWO propellers on it..\"

 

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 10:31:35 AM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:

Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.

I don\'t recall who it was, but someone who posts (posted) a lot here used the 8051 for exactly that reason. There are multiple makers with pin compatible versions. Not fast, not elegant, but it does the job of being an MCU.

This is one reason why I write not just code for the processor, but code that creates the processor as well. My processors never go EOL. I just move them from FPGA to FPGA.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 11:21:28 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 3/7/2023 11:13 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python. That loss-leader pricing?

Oh, I see, looks like there\'s no onboard Flash/program memory that\'s
probably how they keep the cost down.

It has 16KB of execute-in-place cache and interface to an outboard
qspi flash chip.

The Pi Pico includes all that, and power supplies, and USB, for $4 in
any quantity. Somehow the Pi foundation forces all the distributors to
have the same absurd pricing at any quantity.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 17.21.37 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:

On 3/7/2023 11:13 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python.

that\'s just a matter of software all the MCUs with enough memory support that

>That loss-leader pricing?

doubt it, if it wasn\'t for Chipmageddon there would be plenty of MCUs in that price range

and there are now several extremely cheap ARM and RISC-V MCUs from China

Oh, I see, looks like there\'s no onboard Flash/program memory that\'s
probably how they keep the cost down.

yeh, so you need a $0.50 flash on the side. It is 40nm, I think most other flash MCUs are 90nm
it is quite small M0+ cores and it doesn\'t have much in peripherals, it has programmable statemachines instead

 

[whit3rd]

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 7:31:35 AM UTC-8, John Larkin wrote:
> Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Sure; Macintosh computers used Motorola and Hitachi CPUs
and even Rockwell interchangeably for a while, in the 68000 days, and the later
PowerPC chips had IBM and Motorola sources... but that
didn\'t last long.

RiscV gives hope of a future \'standard\'; China\'s clone-it
factories might be doing true second-source today, how would one
know?

Independent multiple sources are less likely than coercion by a major
customer, in the brand-name-conscious west.

 

[bitrex]

On 3/7/2023 1:09 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 17.21.37 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:
On 3/7/2023 11:13 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python.

that\'s just a matter of software all the MCUs with enough memory support that

Yes, what I meant was that similarly to \"Arduino\" they provide right
out-the-door an API for a particular chip\'s features and settings so you
don\'t have to write your own from scratch, a non-trivial amount of work.

That loss-leader pricing?

doubt it, if it wasn\'t for Chipmageddon there would be plenty of MCUs in that price range

and there are now several extremely cheap ARM and RISC-V MCUs from China

Oh, I see, looks like there\'s no onboard Flash/program memory that\'s
probably how they keep the cost down.

yeh, so you need a $0.50 flash on the side. It is 40nm, I think most other flash MCUs are 90nm
it is quite small M0+ cores and it doesn\'t have much in peripherals, it has programmable statemachines instead

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 20.39.05 UTC+1 skrev whit3rd:

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 7:31:35 AM UTC-8, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?
Sure; Macintosh computers used Motorola and Hitachi CPUs
and even Rockwell interchangeably for a while, in the 68000 days, and the later
PowerPC chips had IBM and Motorola sources... but that
didn\'t last long.

RiscV gives hope of a future \'standard\'; China\'s clone-it
factories might be doing true second-source today, how would one
know?

that wouldn\'t be any more second source than ARM is, In both cases the core is the same but peripherals, memory, and pinout, is all over the place for different manufacturers.

one exception might be the many clones of the now old STM32F103, when dubious sellers mark them as genuine STM
most people won\'t nice unless they start looking at details like some code running different speed because of a different memory or higher current consumption in sleep more

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 20.46.21 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:

On 3/7/2023 1:09 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 17.21.37 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:
On 3/7/2023 11:13 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python.

that\'s just a matter of software all the MCUs with enough memory support that
Yes, what I meant was that similarly to \"Arduino\" they provide right
out-the-door an API for a particular chip\'s features and settings so you
don\'t have to write your own from scratch, a non-trivial amount of work.

don\'t they all?

 

[bitrex]

On 3/7/2023 2:52 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 20.46.21 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:
On 3/7/2023 1:09 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 17.21.37 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:
On 3/7/2023 11:13 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python.

that\'s just a matter of software all the MCUs with enough memory support that
Yes, what I meant was that similarly to \"Arduino\" they provide right
out-the-door an API for a particular chip\'s features and settings so you
don\'t have to write your own from scratch, a non-trivial amount of work.

don\'t they all?

I don\'t think every inexpensive Shenzen-special ARM derivative you could
in theory get your hands on in quantity comes with a nice API for you to
use that exposes all the chip\'s particular features in a straightforward
way, no.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 21.06.05 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:

On 3/7/2023 2:52 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 20.46.21 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:
On 3/7/2023 1:09 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 7. marts 2023 kl. 17.21.37 UTC+1 skrev bitrex:
On 3/7/2023 11:13 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 3/7/2023 10:31 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



Wow, that\'s a stupid amount of chip for a buck, particularly given that
it supports C/C++/Python.

that\'s just a matter of software all the MCUs with enough memory support that
Yes, what I meant was that similarly to \"Arduino\" they provide right
out-the-door an API for a particular chip\'s features and settings so you
don\'t have to write your own from scratch, a non-trivial amount of work.

don\'t they all?

I don\'t think every inexpensive Shenzen-special ARM derivative you could
in theory get your hands on in quantity comes with a nice API for you to
use that exposes all the chip\'s particular features in a straightforward
way, no.

most will have a github just like rpi with libraries and examples to do most things

for ST you get a GUI that can generate code to do most things

 

[Don Y]

On 3/7/2023 12:39 PM, whit3rd wrote:

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 7:31:35 AM UTC-8, John Larkin wrote:
Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Sure; Macintosh computers used Motorola and Hitachi CPUs
and even Rockwell interchangeably for a while, in the 68000 days, and the later
PowerPC chips had IBM and Motorola sources... but that
didn\'t last long.

The 68K was sourced by *8* vendors -- though usually a mask revision
behind Motogorilla.

Nowadays, processors are *so* much more capable than in decades
past that you\'re not going to compete with COTS devices (today,
I\'d write an *emulator* instead of designing a CPU from scratch;
the performance boost from all of the ubiquitous mechanisms
would far outweigh he overhead of JITed/p-code)

RiscV gives hope of a future \'standard\'; China\'s clone-it
factories might be doing true second-source today, how would one
know?

I suspect the bigger problem would be having a *reliable* source...
one that can actually produce the same chip from batch to batch
and not rely on \"typ\" numbers to excuse process variations, etc.

Independent multiple sources are less likely than coercion by a major
customer, in the brand-name-conscious west.

Hardware is cheap to revisit. The cost is ALWAYS in the software.
So, figure out the core features that you want from the processor
(regardless of family/architecture/vendor) and design to that.

When the code is *almost* done, worry about reifying the design...
using whatever makes sense economically, at that time.

[I revise my hardware choices annually and have yet to make any noticeable
changes to my codebase. I reexamine the hardware only to be sure I\'m
not missing any trends -- e.g., page sizes changes was an early gotchas]

 

[boB]

On Tue, 07 Mar 2023 07:31:19 -0800, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.

The intel 8080 was second sourced at least by a Japanese company way
back when.

Yes, 6800 stuff too and possibly 8051/8031 parts are/were second
sourced ?

But nothing that might be used today that I now of.

boB

 

[Gerhard Hoffmann]

Am 07.03.23 um 23:14 schrieb boB:

On Tue, 07 Mar 2023 07:31:19 -0800, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

Does anyone know of a multi-sourced uP, ever?

Most everything is nrnd or eol or unavailable this year, so one has to
try to buy a lifetime supply of over-priced chips to keep a product in
production.

The RP2040 looks like the best bet for new designs right now. Digikey
has over 100K in stock for $1.00 in any quantity, and they are
guaranteed to be available until 2041.



The intel 8080 was second sourced at least by a Japanese company way
back when.

Siemens SAB8080

Yes, 6800 stuff too and possibly 8051/8031 parts are/were second
sourced ?

8051, even by Analog Devices, in their ADC portfolio with
ADCs/DACs on-chip. (ADUC842) I\'ve used them in 10 GHz XFP fiber optics
transceivers.
<
http://www.hoffmann-hochfrequenz.de/project_gallery/project_gallery.html >
towards the bottom.


They also do ARM, now.

But nothing that might be used today that I now of.

boB

Their 52 MHz ARM has a chance in a current project if I can
get a radiation resistant version. Just digged that out today.
ECC in the FLASH is a good start.

Gerhard

 

[Don Y]

On 3/7/2023 3:55 PM, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:

Their 52 MHz ARM has a chance in a current project if I can
get a radiation resistant version. Just digged that out today.
ECC in the FLASH is a good start.

IIRC, someone (Intel?) made a rad hard 8085 (?).

And, I suspect there\'s a rad hard 6502 out there -- even if only
for \"select customers\".