At 11:59 17-01-08 -0800, you wrote: >I've given up on the MSP430 family for the very simple reason that using >Linux and OpenSource tools for it is a real iffy situation. > >The AVR tools are better, but the processor sucks with static tables >piped from flash into ram via the Z register before they can be accessed >using normal C pointers.
Harvard architecture sucks when programmed with C... It really makes me wonder why TI's DSPs are still using Harvard. >Open Source tools for ARM processors are well supported in the GNU >toolchain. One true word. But finding a small C library for ARM is not so easy. I've -more or less- ported the MSP430 C library to ARM to get the rom size down. >What about low power? Look at the new ST part, stm32 family. It claims >to run at 500 uA/Mhz, which is twice what TI claims, but still quite >low. > >Apparently TI doesn't want to make any of their third party tool vendors >unhappy, so they're playing the game of "pretend to support the Linux >crowd". > >We presently have one product using an MSP430,We sell about 5000 >annually - nothing for TI to get excited about. After suffering through >its development with crippled tools, we switched to ARM, and we'll soon >be buying tens of thousands of them annually. And probably save a few bucks too. NXP and Luminary make darn cheap ARM controllers. Imagine having a complete BSD socket compatible tcp/ip stack, web-server, DNS resolver, DHCP client, telnet client and 'application' in a controller with 32KB flash which costs just around $3! I think the market for the MSP430 devices is shrinking very very fast. Nico Coesel
