The AT91SAM7S256 and the LPC2148 look pretty simular to me.
Besides the LPC having a bit more program space and a little less sram, any other major differnces?
I see the AT91 has a DMA for the serail ports but not the USB where the LPC has DMA only for the USB. Not sure how important this is.
I’m just about ready to buy one but need a little push in one direction or the other.
It really depends on what you want to use them for. gdisirio posted some benchmarks a while ago which suggested that the LPC is faster than the SAM7 if instruction-memory bandwidth is the limiting factor but otherwise they’re about the same speed. Embedded computing is rarely about speed anyway. I’d choose based on what on-chip peripherals you plan to be using.
The LPC seems to be a bit faster, the SAM7S seems to have better peripherals.
I had much less trouble using the LPC2148 anyway. Be prepared for a lot of arcane PLL settings just to make the SAM7S work. The OpenOCD settings are easier for the LPC2148 too.
You could also consider the STM32, I think it is better than both LPC2148 and SAM7S because the more modern Cortex-M3 core.
regards,
Giovanni
Thank yo for your input.
I’m going to go for the LPC.
The STM32 does look tempting though.
The LPC has the advantage of a very active Yahoo forum with over 6,000 members.
Leon