ac. Is ARM Cortex-M0 more powerful than Microchip PIC32?

QUESTION:

Is ARM Cortex-M0 microcontroller more powerful than Microchip PIC32?

ANSWER:

No.

Basically, it has deficiencies in almost all areas except price, which is advertised to be approximately 1.26 USD a piece. Paying around 5 USD for a PIC32MX250F128B won’t make a huge difference in an assembled PCB cost for hobbyists, but much more inbuilt functionality will. There are also cheaper PIC32 microcontrollers with less RAM and flash RAM that cost about 4 USD.

ARM Cortex-M0 (LPC1102_1104) key features:

ARM Cortex-M0 processor, running at frequencies of up to 50 MHz

ARM Cortex-M0 built-in Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller (NVIC)

Serial Wire Debug

System tick timer

32 kB on-chip flash programming memory

4 kB SRAM

In-System Programming (ISP) and In-Application Programming (IAP)

22 General Purpose I/O (GPIO) pins with configurable pull-up/-down resistors

High-current output driver (20 mA) on one pin

Programmable WatchDog Timer (WDT)

10-bit ADC with input multiplexing among 5 pins

UART with fractional baud rate generation

One SPI controller with SSP features and FIFO and multi-protocol capabilities

I²C-bus interface supporting full I²C-bus specification and Fast-mode Plus

Integrated PMU (Power Management Unit) to minimize power consumption

Power profiles residing in boot ROM (LPC1100Land LPC1100XL series only)

Unique device serial number for identification

Single 3.3 V power supply (1.8 V to 3.6 V)

Four general purpose counter/timers

Microchip PIC32 (PIC32MX250F128B) key features:

• 50 MHz/83DMIPS, 32-bit RISC CPU with less than 0.5 mA/MHz current consumption

• Two I2S/SPI modules for Codec and serial communications

• Peripheral Pin Select (PPS) functionality

• Parallel Master Port (PMP) for graphics interfaces

• Charge Time Measurement Unit (CTMU) :

- Supports mTouchTM Capacitive touch buttons and sliders

- Provides high-resolution time measurement (1 ns)

- On-chip temperature measurement capability

• Temperature Range - 40°C to 105°C

• 32-bit MIPS32® M4K® core with MIPS16e® mode for up to 40% smaller code size

• 128 kB EEPROM (flash RAM type) (plus an additional 3 KB of Boot Flash)with self read/write capability

• 32 kB SRAM memory

• 1.56 DMIPS/MHz (Dhrystone 2.1) performance

• Pin-compatible with most Microchip 16-bit devices

• Multiple power management modes

• 5 input compare units and 5 output compare units (PWM: generation, capture and compare)

• Integrated Temperature Indicator Module

• Configurable WDT with on-chip Low-Power RC oscillator for reliable operation

• Operating voltage range of 2.3V to 3.6V

• Peripheral Pin Select (PPS) functionality

• Up to 4 channels of hardware DMA with automatic data size detection

• Two UART and I2C™ modules

• Separate PLLs for CPU and USB clocks

• Hardware Real-Time Clock and Calendar (RTCC)

• Five 16-bit Timers/Counters (two 16-bit pairs combine to create two 32-bit timers)

• Five Capture inputs and Five Compare/PWM outputs

• Data communication: I2S, LJ, RJ, DSP modes

• Control interface: SPI and I2C™

• Master clock:

- Generation of fractional clock frequencies

- Can be synchronized with USB clock

- Can be tuned in run-time

• Up to 13-channel, 10-bit ADC

• Three Analog Comparators

• Charge Time Measurement Unit (CTMU)

• Four programming and debugging Interfaces

• In Circuit Serial Programming and Debug (ICSP/ICD)

• IEEE Standard 1149.2 compatible (JTAG) boundary scan