Thus, my usual advice to folks looking to pick an SoC is to first code up a simple demo representative of the workload and I/O footprint, and then port the demo to development boards provided by the vendor. The difficulty of getting the toolchain up and running, as well as the general maturity of the firmware, will become painfully clear within a couple days of effort. Although repeating this process for a few SoCs will burn a couple of weeks of time, it can save months of fighting with buggy silicon, fixing drivers, and hand-optimising code.
The other important aspect to check is the availability of the specific part number you’ve chosen. Distribution support will be important, especially if your initial builds are smaller than 10 000 units. A single 300 mm wafer might yield several thousand Cortex-M series SoCs, and a fabrication plant typically processes wafers in lots of 25. So, a few thousand units may be a big deal to a startup, but it’s tiny for a silicon vendor.
This story is an excerpt from HackSpace magazine Issue #14. Interested in regular updates from the world of making? Join thousands of other readers in becoming a HackSpace magazine subscriber.
