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Royal Philips Electronics has announced the availability of the industry's first 90-nm ARM9-based microcontroller, the LPC3180.
PHILIPS SEMICONDUCTORS, San Jose, CA. (800) 447-1500.
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Designed to provide high performance with low power dissipation, the 32-bit LPC3180 MCU operates at speeds up to 208 MHz and is ideal for a wide range of high-precision applications such as point-of-sale (POS) equipment, medical and industrial devices, global positioning systems (GPS), and robotics. The LPC3180 is based on the ARM926EJ-S core, which has an on-board MMU that supports major operating systems such as Linux and also incorporates ARM Jazelle technology, enabling rapid execution of Java bytecode for applications such as basic security and authentication. Peripherals available on-chip include seven UARTs, SPI, two I2C, a real-time clock with a separate power domain, NAND Flash, and DDR memory controllers. The device also contains a 10-bit a/d converter and incorporates interfaces for SDRAM, NAND Flash, USB 2.0 full-speed, Secure Digital (SD) and Memory Stick.
Enter No. 116 at www.eepn.com
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
The LPC3180 MCU is reportedly the only ARM9 microcontroller that provides a vector floating-point co-processor and integrated USB On-The-Go, as well as the ability to operate in ultra-low-power mode down to 0.9V.
KEY FACTS
- Flexible power management in the LPC3180 allows high peak performance, especially for floating-point calculations, and allows shutting down the core power domain while retaining real-time clock and wake-up functionality.
- The new MCU is the only ARM9 microcontroller on the market today that offers a hardware vector floatingpoint unit (VFP9) for speed and efficiency. The hardware floating-point co-processor speeds up typical calculations by a factor of four to five in scalar mode and more in optimized vector mode.
- The LPC3180 is the first ARM9 MCU to offer USB On-The-Go (OTG) integrated with full host capability for direct connection to PDAs, smart-card readers and printers.
- With the introduction of the LPC3180, even low-cost battery-powered devices can use ARM9. Embedded systems designers have fine-grained control over power management, so that power consumption can be tailored to support specific operational requirements.
ON THE WEB:
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com
What About A Development Board and Other Tools?
An LPC3000 development board is available from Nohau Systems (www.nohau.com). Features include; 32 MB SDRAM; 32 MB of NAND flash; LCD Panel; USB, UART and SD Card interfaces; and a JTAG interface. In addition, the ARM Real-View Development Kit dedicated to Philips ARM Microcontrollers including the LPC3180 will be available. Finally, compilers will be available from ARM, IAR, Green Hills and Gnu Compiler Chain (gcc) with support for floating-point hardware. A Linux port will also be available.
Pricing and Availability
Packaged in a 320-pin LFBGA, samples of the LPC3180 microcontroller will be available in March 2006 priced at $7.10 each/10,000.
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