Arm Development Studio forum Cortex-M3 vs ARM7TDMI

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Cortex-M3 vs ARM7TDMI

Note: This was originally posted on 21st April 2011 at http://forums.arm.com

Trying to turn what was a simple hobby project based on Cortex-M3 with some serious enhancements/additions, into a semi-commercial product (might sell it at cost, or even opensource design/software), however I am at a crossroad of sorts, and need to decide whether I could stick to Cortex-M3 or move to ARM7TDMI, since those seem to be comparably priced, although from max DMIPS standpoint, are much lower than those on latest Cortex-M3s. My query is, how much of a factor is DMIPS in my circumstance.

Given some very rough (& not very scientific) estimates, I'd require around 120DMIPS of performance which I might be able to squeeze into say 80DMIPS if I go with commercial libraries & invest significantly (time/effort) in optimizing, which given the nature of the project (desire to sell at-cost or opensource) will be difficult, if not impossible. The point where I do hit the limits of Cortex-M3 is the onboard SRAM. This is where I am in some confusion, as to whether I should try a switch to ARM7TDMI ? Will the Cortex-M3's with External-Memory support, help address my issue ?

~Jay