• @dragontamer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    In case you missed the sibling comment: I just found the iMX RT500, a 249-pin BGA 'Microcontroller" with 5MB of SRAM.

    https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/arm-microcontrollers/i-mx-rt-crossover-mcus/i-mx-rt500-crossover-mcu-with-arm-cortex-m33-dsp-and-gpu-cores:i.MX-RT500

    Which is absolutely the largest “microcontroller” I’ve ever heard of. But you’re right in that 2MB is already an absurdly huge size in most cases.

    • @ttmrichter@lemmy.world
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      11 year ago

      Wow. At that point my reaction is … it would be better to have an SoC. I mean I’m working with kit that typically has 64KB to 128KB of SRAM and thinking that I’m blessed with resources! 🤣

      • @dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, there’s entire MPU platforms that are cheaper than the iMX RT500.

        And the 0.40mm and/or 0.35mm pitch BGAs just confuse me even further. (Seriously, who is getting like 2.5mil trace/space and like 6 layers PCB for a microcontroller? But cannot afford the MPUs?)

        I’m guessing iMX RT500 has some power-benefits. But… it just seems absurd all together to me. But good luck on NXP on finding customers for that thing.

        • @ttmrichter@lemmy.world
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          11 year ago

          I think its sole use case would be for that very, very, very narrow point of intersection between “extreme power management needs” and “extreme processing requirements”.

          And it seems a bit quirky to make … that … chip for it.

          But hey! At least it isn’t the STM32MP1! 🤣