Could I use Cortex-A for embedded applications?

There is no reason why a Cortex-A core should not be used in an embedded application.

Cortex-A devices can offer considerably more processing power than Cortex-M devices and this may be your criteria for choosing one.

Perhaps a more important criteria is that Cortex-A devices incorporate a Memory Management Unit which allows implementation of a full virtual memory system. This means you can use platform operating systems such as Linux. Mainstream Linux cannot be run on a Cortex-M platform because these devices do not support virtual memory.

With the launch of the latest cores in the Cortex-A family, Cortex-A35 and Cortex-A32, there are now Cortex-A options which have very low power consumption and are very efficient. These are a natural choice for a rich embedded application.

Chris

There is no reason why a Cortex-A core should not be used in an embedded application.

Cortex-A devices can offer considerably more processing power than Cortex-M devices and this may be your criteria for choosing one.

Perhaps a more important criteria is that Cortex-A devices incorporate a Memory Management Unit which allows implementation of a full virtual memory system. This means you can use platform operating systems such as Linux. Mainstream Linux cannot be run on a Cortex-M platform because these devices do not support virtual memory.

With the launch of the latest cores in the Cortex-A family, Cortex-A35 and Cortex-A32, there are now Cortex-A options which have very low power consumption and are very efficient. These are a natural choice for a rich embedded application.

Chris

Please can you describe in more detail what you are trying to accomplish?

What sort of processing power do you need?  if it

What additional functionality do you need?

You mention Digital I/O  (how many, what functionality etc).

The more information you can provide the better quality the answers you will receive.

Hope this helps

I want to use it for DSP applications and signal generating for motor control.

Have you considered a 300MHz Cortex M7 from Atmel?

ATSAME70 and ATSAMV7x devices also have CAN interfaces etc.

Combines MCU and DSP functionality offering similar performance to entry level 32bit DSP's.

Also one of the applications it is targeting is Motor control.

Cortex-As have more powerful DSP instructions becuase of SIMD and NEON
Still Performance/price of Cortex-As are higher than Cortex-Ms.

I think you can have a look at NXP i.MX6 series products