No, PIC18F are 10MIPs, and that's 8-bit RISC. No point in speaking ill of it, 18F can do quite excellent things when they fit the job. Better choice than a more powerful processor for a million things.
Ah. Yes, "sort of" true. Actually the later models of PICs all have PLLs, so internal frequency is separate from the xtal freq. So the "mhz" part isn't even important. I could take a 1MHz xtal and use the PLL multiplier to get 40MHz internal freq and 10MIPs. Since you never actually see the 40MHz part anywhere on input or output, it's kind of irrelevant.
Ah. Yes, "sort of" true. Actually the later models of PICs all have PLLs, so internal frequency is separate from the xtal freq. So the "mhz" part isn't even important. I could take a 1MHz xtal and use the PLL multiplier to get 40MHz internal freq and 10MIPs. Since you never actually see the 40MHz part anywhere on input or output, it's kind of irrelevant.
A PLL does multiply the clock of the external crystal (not just by 4), but the idea that it means something is not correct. The core frequency is what is counted, not that of the external oscillator, which is irrelevant. All of these chips discussed here that work at higher frequency are rated at their internal frequency not that of the crystal. My 50Mhz Luminary chips are using 6Mhz crystals. So, if the chip is rated for 1/4 DMIP/Mhz, the Mhz it's referring to is the actual core clock speed.
I noticed the PIC32's are rated at 1.56 DMIPS/Mhz.
Not at all. The accuracy of the crystal and meeting the freq requirements on the input pin is all that matters. If it's 1% too fast, the end freq is 1% too fast after multiplication. There are no "jumps".
A lot of more advanced chips have flexible PLLs that don't just multiply by 4x. They can mult and divide by a wide variety of controllable ratios. They're widely used and work perfectly. This can get the full 10MIPs off the internal oscillator too (~7MHz usually, IIRC). The xtal can cost more than the PIC in small applications, so this is a dandy feature.
heh na.. I plan on ordering a nice 3.5" TFT LCD (320X240) it has 60 pins but thats not the issue. Its 8 Bit *RGB Parallel meaning
8 pins for each R G B
So im sure i can switch that with a pic using Latched shift registers pretty fast heh but i want speed and the ability to do more than 1 thing at a time... which is what i assume threads are... I know that XMOS has enough power so ill be looking into it. The max i would want to do is about 15 frames a second.
Look at the UBW 32 from sparkfun $36. It is just a PIC32MX460F512L mounted on a small target board. You can get just the chip for about $8 if you can mount it on a breakout or make a PCB. It looks like it is a .5mm pitch part.
78 usable I/O pins
1.56 DMIPS/MHz (Dhrystone 2.1) Performance
at 0 Wait State Flash Access