Product category:
Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs
News Release from: Freescale Semiconductor | Subject: MCF520x and MCF521x
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 27 May 2005
ColdFire moves to affordable price point
Two new ColdFire device families ease the migration to 32bit performance for applications that require low power consumption and flexible integration at an affordable price point.
Freescale Semiconductor is enhancing its 32bit leadership with the introduction of two ColdFire device families The MCF520x and MCF521x families ease the migration to 32bit performance for applications that require low power consumption and flexible integration at an affordable price point
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 20 Mar 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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"The move toward low-cost, low-power 32bit embedded controllers is definitely on the rise", said Tony Massimini, Chief of Technology at Semico Research.
"Results from our most recent report indicate that worldwide sales for 32bit microcontrollers (MCUs) are growing at a CAGR (2004-2009) of 19.4%, with low cost and low power as driving factors".
"Freescale is in a good position to capitalise on this market and be a market leader".
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Designed for a wide variety of control applications, including factory automation, lighting control, security and retail point-of-sale scanners, the MCF520x and MCF521x devices address the need for high-performance, cost-effective, low-power embedded connectivity.
"Our new 32bit ColdFire families are a natural upgrade for customers migrating from 8 and 16bit performance or who need a scaled-down design of higher-performance applications", said John Sansing, Operations Manager for Freescale's Consumer and Industrial MCU Business.
"These devices are ideal for customers looking for increased performance and flexibility in a low-power 32bit embedded controller, and this is only the beginning".
"We're planning more introductions in early 2006".
With a typical current draw of less than 1mA/MHz, the MCF520x and MCF521x families specifically address the need for high-performance, low-power embedded connectivity in industrial control applications.
The families are the first ColdFire products to offer integrated distributed clocking and low-power divider functionality to scale the central processing unit (CPU) below 1MHz without going into shutdown mode.
Freescale has also minimised leakage and focused on packaging enhancements to optimise power consumption without sacrificing performance.
For embedded connectivity applications in which performance is the driving factor, the MCF520x microprocessor (MPU) family delivers as much as 159MIPS at suggested resale pricing less than US $5.
The MCF520x family offers an enhanced multiply-accumulate (eMAC) module and instruction/data cache with an optional Ethernet controller.
The devices feature a flexible memory controller, Flash, SRAM and a choice of single datarate (SDR) or double datarate (DDR) synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) memory.
The MCF521x MCU family is ideal for control applications that require a high level of integration and in which space, system costs and power consumption are at a premium.
These devices offer up to 256Kbyte of integrated Flash memory, a 12bit analogue-to-digital convertor (ADC), a MAC module for digital signal processing (DSP) functionality and an optional controller area network (CAN) module.
Both families are code-compatible with the Freescale ColdFire product portfolio and use the high-performance V2 ColdFire core with on-chip memory, direct memory access (DMA) controller, general purpose I/Os and connectivity peripherals - including universal asynchronous receiver/transmitters (UARTs), inter-IC bus (I2C) interface and queued serial peripheral interface (QSPI).
Freescale is committed to helping customers introduce products to market easier and faster through direct development support and services.
Freescale also offers assistance with migration from the 68K family via free translators and tools.
The MCF520x and MCF521x processor evaluation boards ship with a fully licensed, complimentary Special Edition of the CodeWarrior Development Studio for ColdFire Architectures.
The Special Edition is code-size limited and includes a ColdFire optimising compiler designed for maximising performance and generating compact code.
The Special Edition is ideal for cost-sensitive solutions and eliminates time restrictions during evaluation of ColdFire processors.
Developers who require more comprehensive tools can purchase Standard and Professional Editions of the CodeWarrior Development Studio.
Freescale offers comprehensive software and tools solutions through partnerships with world-class suppliers, including Green Hills, MQX Embedded, Wind River and Accelerated Technology, as well as many other independent suppliers.
Customers also have access to full open source software solutions, as well as third-party off-the-shelf boards.
Samples of the MCF521x family are currently available, and samples of the MCF520x family are expected to be available in June 2005.
Production quantities for both the MCF521x and MCF520x are planned for late 2005.
Suggested resale pricing in 10,000-piece quantities starts at US $4.99 for the MCF521x and MCF520x devices.
Freescale intends to further extend its ColdFire portfolio in early 2006 with next-generation MCF5210 and MCF522x device families featuring cost-reduced scalability and combinations of USB and Ethernet connectivity.
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