Blockbuster bombing: Ti shocked $5 push cortext A8 processor ?! Khan TI's arm has also begun to attract people!

Yesterday, Ti made a shock to the electronics industry, announced the latest release of Sitara am335x arm Cortex-A8 microprocessor, the bulk price of only 5 dollars, at the same time, it also launched an easy-to-use open-source hardware platform and a free software development kit at an ultra-low price of $89. Both prices can be said to have broken the current industry's gaming rules.

This message was sent by Chang Xu on Weibo, attracting an exclamation point: "Shocked !", "Ti'cray !", "The price killer may not be a domestic company .", "This price is very lethal. The original manufacturer of low-end Chinese tablet IC said there was pressure ." Some netizens said: "is the last prediction of consumer IC ?" Of course, the vast majority of netizens are very excited when they are shocked. "Good news, TI has finally opened its door to General Enterprises ." A netizen said. "Where can I sell a Development Board worth $89 ?" Some netizens can't wait.

This is indeed a blockbuster blow in the consumer electronics market. Am335x not only uses the popular cortext A8 core, the clock speed can reach 720 MHz, and Ti has integrated a wide range of peripherals in am335x. Including 3D graphics GPU, touch screen control IC (resistance screen currently supported), Gigabit Ethernet port, CAN, DDR2/ddr3, and on-chip 12-bit ADC and On-Chip PMU functions. "In particular, am335x integrates a programmable logical unit Pru, allowing users to flexibly add protocols and a variety of new serial interfaces. Although am335x supports six serial interfaces, some applications may need more. Pru makes am335x very flexible ." Tao, Ti application processor and low-power DSP business expansion manager, explained. He also stressed that Pru can be very convenient based on popular assembly languages. "We roughly calculated the cost of using am335x to reduce the user's peripheral cost and the cost of the main chip. Its Bom is about $40 less than the mainstream in the market ." He said. Of course, this number is just a reference data. However, the price of $5, coupled with a wealth of peripherals, is indeed less lethal.

However, the launch was not just the $5 A8 processor. At the same time, the $89 concise development board beaglebone was launched by TI, which is the killer of "Grassroots" users. "Beaglebone Development Board utilizes TI's many popular beagleboard Development Board resources in omap35xx, supporting Android, Linux, and Windows Embedded compact
7. Based on this development board, users can launch products to the market within 6 months ." Tao said. Because omap34xx is also based on the cortext A8 kernel and has many applications, the beaglebone Development Board can use many of the above resources.

In this release, Ti positions am335x's main market in portable navigation systems, handheld games and educational devices, as well as home/building automation, obviously, it is the most competitive market, with the most involved local IC companies. However, these markets are also a relatively large volume of shipments. It seems that Ti not only needs high profits, but also has a high volume of shipment pressure. After offering the mobile phone base band market, TI has not yet found a comparable field in the digital IC market, and the consumer electronics market can be regarded as one.

Of course, Ma Tao explained that am335x is not only for consumer electronics markets, but also for telecommunications, industrial, medical, human-machine peripherals and other markets. Therefore, in addition to the above $89 concise Development Board, Ti also provides a full-featured Development Board for am335x, the price is of course 10 times more than concise board-$995. "A market oriented to the public and taking advantage of traffic; a market oriented to special needs ." He said.

A bloody battle has started. Ti can gain cost advantages with arm package authorization, and, in such a shocking price, the Chinese processor vendors are ready to fight?

Characteristics and advantages of Sitara am335x arm Cortex-A8 microprocessor: