NXP introduces industry's fastest ARM Cortex-M3 Microcontrollers

Ultra-low power 100 MHz LPC1700 MCU runs Ethernet, CAN and USB simultaneously without bottlenecks

October 06, 2008 -- NXP Semiconductors, the independent semiconductor company founded by Philips, today announced the LPC1700 series, the industry's fastest microcontroller family based on the ARM® Cortex-M3 processor. Running at speeds up to 100 MHz, the LPC1700 series of microcontrollers operates from 28 - 64% faster than any competitive Cortex-M3 microcontroller available on the market today. This best-in-class performance allows the LPC1700 series to operate the high-bandwidth communications peripherals such as Ethernet, USB On-The-Go/Host/Device, and CAN simultaneously without bottlenecks.

The LPC1700, based on the new Cortex-M3 Revision 2 core, adds tightly integrated power control, including a unique Wake-up Interrupt Controller (WIC) that allows for graceful and efficient entry into and exit from lowest power sleep states.

Further, the LPC1700 is pin-to-pin compatible with the popular ARM7-based NXP LPC2300 series. This compatibility allows customers to evaluate both the Cortex-M3 and ARM7-based products in the same socket and to choose the right microcontrollers for their applications. The LPC1700 series targets a wide range of applications, including eMetering, lighting, industrial networking, alarm systems, white goods and motor control.

“LPC1700 is the fastest Cortex-M3 microcontrollers available, and has been designed for customers requiring simultaneous high bandwidth data streams from Ethernet, USB and CAN,” said Geoff Lees, vice president and general manager, microcontroller product line, NXP Semiconductors. “As always, we are committed to offering our customers the broadest range of choice available in 32-bit MCUs.”

The NXP LPC1700 microcontroller series offers the following features:

• Support for communication peripherals including 10/100 Ethernet, USB On-The-Go/Host/Device and two CAN interfaces, all of which can operate simultaneously and without bus contention
• A true 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and 10-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC)
• Fast-Mode Plus (1 Mb/s) I²C bus, in addition to 4 UARTs, 3 SPI/SSP buses and an I²S bus
• Real-Time Clock operating at less than 1 uA
• A Memory Protection Unit (MPU) allowing memory regions to be defined as read-only and protect them from corruption
• A Quadrature Encoder Interface and Motor Control Pulse Width Modulator (PWM) for flexible, powerful motor control
• Revision 2 Cortex-M3 core with enhanced power down capabilities, including Wake-up Interrupt Controller
• Pin compatibility with the NXP LPC2300 ARM7 microcontrollers series

Development tool support

The NXP LPC1700 will be supported by the same large variety of tool vendors available today for NXP's ARM-based 32-bit MCUs, such as Keil (an ARM company), IAR Systems, Hitex Development Tools, Embedded Artists, and more. Code Red Technologies will offer support for the LPC1700 in their Eclipse-based Red Suite software development platform.

 Availability

The NXP LPC1700 will be demonstrated at Embedded Systems Conference Boston (October 26-30, 2008). Engineering samples will be available starting in December 2008. Further information is available at www.nxp.com/microcontrollers
 
About NXP Semiconductors

NXP is a leading semiconductor company founded by Philips more than 50 years ago. Headquartered in Europe, the company has 31,000 employees working in more than 20 countries and posted a pro forma sales of USD 4.8 billion (excluding the transferred wireless business) in 2007. NXP creates semiconductors, system solutions and software that deliver better sensory experiences in TVs, set-top boxes, identification applications, mobile phones, cars and a wide range of other electronic devices. News from NXP is located at www.nxp.com.