Re: News : ARM Trying to Buy AmperComputing

On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:46:02 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

   That's actually a very clever design - copes with both universes !
 
   How smoothly the disparate cores work together, dunno.

You can only use two cores at one time. I've read you can have one ARM and
one RISC-V but I haven't verified it.

   With these things, it's the intended application that's the relevant
   factor. Maybe you can't run Linux on some of the chips but there's
   usually some cut-down substitute that'll get yer job done. Seriously
   MICRO microcontrollers,
   well, it's still gonna be ASM and 'C' - more like Arduinos and PICs.
   Can't fit an OS into everything ...

Sure for the really small sole use devices. Even the Uno R4 has a 32-bit
ARM Cortex-M4. I've got a couple of Nano Sense 33s that use the nRF52840,
another Cortex-M4 design. Even Microchip is on board with the PIC32CX-BZ2,
another Cortex-M4 SOC with BLE. There will always be a market for chips
like the original PICs or AVRs for rice cookers.

I've used the C SDK with the RP2040. You definitely have more control than
using MicroPython but like all C and Python comparisons you're doing a lot
more low level boilerplate to get the job done. If you need it the speed,
control, and memory it's there. I don't know if hand coded ASM would buy
much. C compilers are pretty good these days.

The interesting conversation these days is the next RTOS. ARM is dropping
the Mbed OS, EOL July 2026. Zephyr is one of the contenders.