Multicore Microcontrollers Enable Gigabit Ethernet Internet of Things for Under $5

XMOS ships first xCORE-200 Gigabit Ethernet multicore microcontrollers to Cisco, Helitune and Pivitec.

Bristol, 23 March 2015 – XMOS Ltd. the leader in intelligent multicore microcontrollers, has today announced the launch, and the first customer shipments of its new Gigabit Ethernet enabled xCORE-200^TM multicore microcontroller family. Integrating 16 high-performance 32bit-RISC-processor-cores in a single device, the first xCORE-200 device delivers up to 2000MIPS of real-time computing power and is the first 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet solution available with programmable MAC layer and Internet webserver support. This advanced capability from a low-cost multicore microcontroller opens up a whole new set of Gigabit-speed Internet-of-Things applications.

Announcing the new product family, Nigel Toon CEO of XMOS said, "This next generation xCORE-200 product family delivers twice the performance and four times the on-chip SRAM memory, when compared to our first generation xCORE multicore microcontrollers. They add a flexible Gigabit Ethernet port alongside a high performance and programmable XMOS USB 2.0 interface, and devices will be available with up to 2Mbytes of on-chip Flash memory for system-level integration and security. This combination of performance and real-time flexibility makes xCORE-200 the ideal programmable platform for high performance consumer and professional audio, and emerging Gigabit-speed IoT applications."

XMOS has already sampled lead customers with the xCORE-200 and the xCORE-200 eXplorerKIT^TM evaluation board.

"The IoT market demands new infrastructure capabilities with greater scalability, flexibility and support for high-bandwidth applications and services. At openBerlin, the Cisco Internet of Everything Innovation Center, we’re working with the XMOS xCORE-200 on new applications and solutions for industrial IoT", commented Dimitar Vasilev, CTO at openBerlin, Cisco IoE Innovation Platform.

"We are thrilled to be one of the first customers to receive the new xCORE-200 eXplorer board," said Andy Lobato, CEO of Helitune. "Our advanced system monitoring applications need the fastest response times and full timing synchronization and determinism in a very small package so that we can capture and process multiple critical sensing elements in real-time. The xCORE-200 multicore microcontroller family, which we can program and configure entirely in software, is a perfect fit for this demanding application."

Commenting on xCORE-200 and its advanced 128-channel professional audio technology, Tom Knesel, President at Pivitec LLC said, "XMOS is the leader in high resolution audio for USB and Ethernet-AVB based equipment, both for consumers and amongst pro-audio specialists. This new xCORE-200 family allows us to extend our digital audio mixer and audio interface capabilities to create up to 128 high-resolution digital audio channels all on a single, low cost, deterministic and flexible, multicore platform."

Samples of the first member in the xCORE-200 family are available today. The XE216-512-TQ128 device includes:

• 16 high-performance 32bit RISC processor cores
• Up to 2000MIPS of high performance compute for general purpose and DSP processing
• 512Kbytes of embedded SRAM memory
• Support for a 480Mbps USB 2.0 interface, including integrated PHY
• 10/100/1000 Ethernet port with flexible MAC layer, webserver support and RGMII PHY interface
• 88 fully flexible Hardware-Response^TM I/Os
• 128pin TQFP package

The XE216-512-TQ128 will cost less than $4.75 in high volume and a complete family of devices will become available over the next few months ranging from products with 8 high-performance 32bit-RISC-processors, up to devices with 10, 12 and 16 cores. Advanced xCORE-200 products with 24 and 32 high-performance 32bit-processor cores will be available in the second half of 2015.

The easy-to-use and flexible xCORE-200 eXplorerKIT^TM evaluation board is available through XMOS sales offices and by request from www.xmos.com/xCORE-200. A new release of the popular xTIME-Composer^TM Studio development tools, provides full support for xCORE-200 family, and is available through a free download from www.xmos.com.

About XMOS

XMOS is an innovative fabless semiconductor company with its headquarters and main development center in Bristol, UK, plus a second development center in Chennai, India. The company has sales office and distributors supporting customers around the globe.

xCORE^TM and xCORE-200^TM multicore microcontrollers allow engineers to create the exact hardware system needed for their application, all in software. This makes xCORE the ideal programmable platform for demanding embedded applications in audio, automotive, consumer, industrial and robotics applications. The xCORE-AUDIO processors deliver class-leading, industry proven, XMOS USB audio solutions in a low-cost format. For more information please visit www.xmos.com.