Texas Instruments has introduced its first ARM Cortex M4 based microcontroller - which is also its first M-series family on a 65nm process.
M4 is effectively ARM's popular M3, plus DSP-like instructions, and TI has also included the M4's optional floating point unit.
Called the M4F series, all the family will include a new 1Msample/s 12bit ADC.
"We put a lot of effort into designing the 12bit ADC. Accuracy is +/-1bit over temperature," said TI marketing director Matthias Poppel.
The firm's Cortex M3 range, branded Stellaris, was acquired when it bought Luminary Micro, which brought M3's to market very quickly by using low-risk processes and simple design.
With M4F, TI is introducing a family with all the benefits of a state-of-the-art hardware process that will run M3 and M4 code .
For example, standby current is now down to 1.6µA.
"A significant jump from Stellaris before," said Poppel.
There is also an active real-time clock mode for 1.7µA, and wake-up is available under 500µs.
USB OTG (on-the-go) and a boot-loader ease on-site maintenance.
"Just come along with a USB stick and download a firmware upgrade," said Poppel.
The core operates at up to 80MHz and the peripheral mix on all variants includes two of the 12bit ADCs and three analogue comparators that can be hardware-linked to on-die PWMs for fast response in motor controllers.
Connectivity options including the USB (host, device and OTG), UARTs, I2C, SSI/SPI and CAN.
Memory options are up to 256kbyte flash and 32lbyte SRAM, and IEC60730 domestic appliance safety-related sub-routines are included as standard in ROM.
Integrated EEPROM supports non-volatile storage of user interface or configuration parameters.
Hardware development kits and a software development environment are available.
