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Now that most vendors offer a diverse variety of ARM Cortex-M chips, why would one pick a Renesas or Freescale product? I understand that there are reasons for somebody to go with a PIC32 as they are familiar with tools etc, there also reasons to use a 16 or 8 bit MCU from TI or Atmel as they might think it's somewhat more suitable for their design, but why would one want to use a Renesas RX or Freescale ColdFire?

errordeveloper
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    If the volume is large enough, even moderate factors that make a particular chip (including it's peripherals) more suitable or cost effective for a task can justify dealing with a new software architecture. Also, those other designs aren't necessarily new architectures anyway - many of the coldfire devices are 68000 family descendants. – Chris Stratton Sep 26 '13 at 16:53
  • I usually look at peripherals and price. – Doov Sep 26 '13 at 17:56
  • Damn, I had a feeling this will get downvoted ;~( – errordeveloper Sep 26 '13 at 18:01
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    @errordeveloper: don't get discouraged by downvotes, especially not one. – Gustavo Litovsky Sep 26 '13 at 18:04
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    somewhat related thread: http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/37423/how-to-choose-a-mcu-platform , although it deals with a wider set of choices – Nick Alexeev Sep 26 '13 at 19:38

1 Answers1

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I think the best answer to this question, which gets asked a lot, is to look at a good survey. Embedded has a very good survey and it includes many factors.

Look at it and you can see many of the factors motivating people:

UBM Embedded Market Study 2012

Some of the factors you mentioned, and many others are covered and reveal a wide variety of factors play into the selection. Familiarity with the parts dominate, but the strength of the ecosystem is very important.

Gustavo Litovsky
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