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The FS32R274VCK2VMM appears to be the cheapest in this series; Digi-Key have it for $30, NXP has it for "$13 @ 10K". This is for a 200MHz part.

https://www.nxp.com/part/FS32R274VCK2VMM

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/nxp-usa-inc/FS32R2...

The two related devkits list for $529 and $4,123: https://www.digikey.com/products/en/development-boards-kits-...

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Those processors make quite a few reference to an "e200", which I think is the CPU architecture. I discovered that Digi-Key lists quite a few variants of this under Core Processor; and checking the datasheets of some random results suggests that they are indeed Power architecture parts.

https://www.digikey.com/products/en/integrated-circuits-ics/...

The cheapest option appears to be the $2.67@1000, up-to-48MHz SPC560D40L1B3E0X with 256KB ECC RAM.

Selecting everything >100MHz finds the $7.10@1000 SPC560D40L1B3E0X, an up-to-120MHz part that adds 1MB flash (128KB ECC RAM).

Restricting to >=200MHz finds the $13.32@500 SPC5742PK1AMLQ9R has which has dual cores at 200MHz, 384KB ECC RAM and 2.5MB flash, and notes core lock-step.

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After discovering the purpose of the "view prices at" field, the landscape changes somewhat.

https://www.digikey.com/products/en/integrated-circuits-ics/...

The SPC574S64E3CEFAR (https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/spc574s64e3.pdf) is 140MHz, has 1.5MB code + 64KB data flash and 96KB+32KB data RAM, and is available for $14.61 per 1ea.

The SPC5744PFK1AMLQ9 (https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/MPC5744P.pdf) is $20.55@1, 200MHz, 2.5MB ECC flash, 384KB ECC RAM, and has two cores that support lockstep.

The MPC5125YVN400 (https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/product-brief/MPC5125PB.pdf) is $29.72@1, 400MHz, supports DDR2@200MHz (only has 32KB onboard (S)RAM), and supports external flash. (I wonder if you could boot Linux on this thing?)



These are all basically ten-year-old parts, aren't they?


Yes but hey, the core ARM ISA is like 40 years old. The key is that they are in fact "low cost SoCs" which is not something I knew existed :-).

Its really too bad the dev boards are so expensive but I get you need a lot of layers to route that sort of BGA.


Sure, the ARM ISA is old, but a few things have happened in microarchitecture since then. I wouldn't be rushing to use a 10-year-old ARM over a newer one. The Cortex cores are pretty great compared to ARM9 or whatever.


The ARM Cortex-M3 was released in 2006 and is still a popular microcontroller core. Microcontrollers have a multi-decade long lifespan. (I'm still seeing new 8051-based designs...)

There are still new chips using the Cortex-M3 today. Microcontroller devs do NOT want to be changing their code that often.

New chips move the core to lower-and-cheaper process nodes (and lower the power consumption), while otherwise retaining the same overall specifications and compatibility.


They're all low end embedded parts with highly integrated peripherals. Basically: a microcontroller.

No different than say, Cortex-M0 or M0+ in many regards (although ARM scales down to lower spec'd pieces).




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