STM32H7 series - brutal raw power of 400MHz clock

[waclawek.jan]

Posted on October 20, 2016 at 11:10

While I see no announcement, the following is online:

http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/microcontrollers/stm32-32-bit-arm-cortex-mcus/stm32h7-series.html?querycriteria=productId=SS1951

Not only the 400MHz Fclk is worth mentioning, but also 1MB of RAM (64kB ITCM + 128kB DTCM, the rest is a 3-part user SRAM  and 4kB backup SRAM)

JW

[Amel NASRI]

Posted on October 20, 2016 at 15:32

http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/about/media-center/press-item.html/p3878.html

[jpeacock23]

Posted on October 21, 2016 at 21:18

It looks like a nice fit below an A series based controller.  An M7 is a lot easier to use compared to going the A5, A7, A9 or an old ARM11 route.  Forcing that jump to SDRAM from flash and internal SRAM adds a lot to the BOM cost, plus the layout hassles going to BGA and extra PCB layers.

By coincidence just after reading about the H7 I was handed a problem that needs a custom built gateway from proprietary radio to Ethernet.  The H7 is fast enough to handle the thruput and large enough memory that I don't have to look at an A7.  Timing for the announcement could not be better....

  Jack Peacock

[waclawek.jan]

Posted on November 16, 2016 at 13:43

In action, http://blog.st.com/see-new-stm32h7-mcu-action/

The real stuff is from 2:15.

This of course does not demonstrate the powers of 'H7xx, but that of the built-in hardware JPEG decoder. Pretty, though.

A few pictures of the evalboard used in that demo: http://time4ee.com/articles.php?article_id=35

JW

[AvaTar]

Posted on November 16, 2016 at 14:14

> It looks like a nice fit below an A series based controller.  An M7 is a lot easier to use compared to going the A5, A7, A9 or an old ARM11 route.  Forcing that jump to SDRAM from flash and internal SRAM adds a lot to the BOM cost, plus the layout hassles going to BGA and extra PCB layers.

 

Depends on one's viewpoint (i.e. requirements).

A Cortex A (or another ''real'' CPU) allows a proper OS environment like Linux, with a huge quantity of available and free software, including developers.

For certain projects, hardware design costs are less of a driving factor.

With this in mind, I'm not really surprised by the rather reluctant market acceptance of M7 devices.

[waclawek.jan]

Posted on November 16, 2016 at 14:22

> reluctant market acceptance of M7 devices

Do you have numbers or any other fact in supporting this?

Thanks,

JW

[AvaTar]

Posted on November 16, 2016 at 15:37

> Do you have numbers or any other fact in supporting this?

No - just statements of MCU vendor staff at trade shows.

And, of course, project discussions at my company/companies that I witnessed.

[AvaTar]

Posted on November 16, 2016 at 15:45

To add another comment:

Does not speak the number of available M7 silicons (and the number of M7 licensees) speak for itself ?

But that might as well have to do with the ongoing ''consolidation process'' in the MCU world (which gives me kind of a headache ...).

[AvaTar]

Posted on November 23, 2016 at 13:05

Here

http://www.elektroniknet.de/design-elektronik/halbleiter/komplexe-mcus-beherrschbar-machen-134788.html

about a multi-vendor round table discussion, coming to similar conclusions. However, in German language.

[waclawek.jan]

Posted on November 23, 2016 at 13:55

Thanks, AvaTar.

Jan

[aaron239955_stm1_st]

Posted on January 04, 2017 at 04:21

Yes, the crossover gets blurred very quickly.  When you have real hardware (Raspberry Pi 3B) that sells for $35 retail containing a multi-core ARM A running at 1GHz, 1GB RAM, built-in USB ports(4), Wifi, E'Net (with Phy), camera interface, HDMI.  Add a 32GB flash card for $10, or 64G for $20 and it makes the space for the M7/H7 pretty tight.