Budget 32bit MCUs integrate big fast Flash

Supporting the industry migration from 8 to 32bit microcontrollers, Philips has launched the first five of a series of 32bit MCUs with up to 512Kbyte of on-chip Flash memory.

Supporting the industry migration from 8 to 32bit microcontrollers (MCUs), Philips has launched the first five of a series of 32bit MCUs with up to 512Kbyte of on-chip Flash memory.

Philips' LPC2130 Series establishes a new price/performance ratio for the 32bit ARM7 segment, offering the most cost-effective MCUs at twice the speed and up to four times the performance of existing 32bit ARM MCUs.

Designed for a wide variety of embedded system applications, including industrial control, computing-peripheral and medical markets, the LPC2130 Series offers the fastest Flash memory available on 0.18-micron CMOS technology, ultra-low-power operation and built-in error correction.

Powerful on-chip Flash memory is a critical component in systems that require additional computing muscle and real-time response.

The LPC2130 Series (LPC2131, LPC2132, LPC2134, LPC2136 and LPC2138) is armed with up to 512Kbyte of 128bit-wide Flash memory.

This enables four 32bit words to be accessed in a single fetch, allowing the CPU to run at 60MHz (54MIPS) without wait-states.

Contrasting with other ARM7 MCU implementations, this single difference delivers up to four times the performance.

This, in turn, leads to time-to-market advantages for customers.

The LPC2130 Series is unique in offering built-in error correction, allowing mission-critical applications with improved system reliability over extended temperature ranges.

"Philips' LPC2130 Series delivers the DSP-type performance we needed on a flexible, easy-to-use and cost-effective platform so that we could achieve our time-to-market goals", said Brendan Murphy, CTO of Innovada, a company that offers device communications solutions for wireless sensor networks (WSN), automated meter reading (AMR) and point-of-sale (POS) terminals.

"The unique memory architecture of Philips' LPC2130 Series enabled us to run directly from Flash at the full 60MHz CPU clock speed without having to conduct any special performance optimisations or worry about complex cache issues".

"We saved a lot of time as it allowed us to just 'compile and go' with our software modem".

Another distinct feature of the LPC2130 Series is its real-time trace and debug capability which permits designers to continuously debug a system under actual conditions, drastically shortening debug-and-modify iterations.

"The LPC2130 Series offers the level of integration and performance that customers expect in a 32bit MCU at the power consumption, price and physical size of an 8bit MCU", said Joe Yu, Strategic Marketing Manager, Standard ICs Business Line, Microcontrollers Product Line, Philips Semiconductors.

"This series, with its breadth of on-chip serial communications, represents an accelerated expansion of the LPC2000 family".

"We now have multiple UART, I2C and SSP/SPI interfaces on each device and we are developing a range of USB interfaces for introduction early next year".

The five new devices are footprint-compatible with key features that include: a 16/32bit ARM7TDMI-S CPU with ARM debug and embedded trace interfaces; 47 bit-addressable GPIO pins; 3V single-voltage supply with brownout detect and power-on reset; dual eight-channel 10bit ADC and a 10bit DAC; and tiny QFP and HVQFN (9 x 9mm) 64-pin packages.

The LPC2130 Series is supported by popular low-cost development tools from third-party providers, including ARM, Ashling, CMX, Green Hills, Hitex, IAR, Interniche, Keil, Nohau, Phytec, Signum and ZLG.

The LPC2131, LPC2132, LPC2134, LPC2136 and LPC2138 have 32, 64, 128, 256 and 512Kbyte of on-chip Flash program memory and 8, 16 and 32Kbyte of on-chip static RAM, respectively.

The LPC2131, LPC2132 and LPC2138 are available now.

The LPC2134 and LPC2136 will be available in early Q1 2005.

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