Migration from 8 to 32 bit microcontroller

Abstract

This report presents the master thesis on migrating embedded systems from 8 to 32 bit CPU.It accounts for the study of different CPU architectures, their properties and use, with an emphasize on differences presented to the programmer. It gives a summary of market segments for the two bit widths and points out benefits of using a 32 bit CPU.In the second part obstacles when migrating software and hardware from existing designs and general design considerations, like Electromagnetic compliance, required in a 32 bit world is discussed and analyzed.Finally it describes an effort to optimize Atmel s new, under development, on chip debugger (OCDX), by replacing the 8 bit AVR Mega128 with Atmel s latest 32 bit AVR32 AP7000. It was found that the OCDX s data throughputrequirements are too high to be handled efficiently with the AVR32, and the current FPGA implementation is suggested to continue.