Philips delivers first LPC900 microcontroller with 16KB Flash Memory
High performance device enables migration path for designers needing more code capacity
Embedded systems designers can now realize cost savings without sacrificing performance with the latest 8-bit microcontroller (MCU) offering from Philips. Today Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) announced the highly integrated single chip LPC936 microcontroller, continuing its strategy to offer a broad portfolio of devices and a migration path for designers who need additional performance without moving to a new architecture.
The LPC936 is ideal for applications such as consumer DVD recorders, handheld instruments, metering, security, HVAC, white goods and others. The on-chip RTC can keep time and the keyboard interrupt feature can provide user interface via buttons or switches. The low power features such as clock dividers and power-down modes give users longer battery life. The two on-chip ADCs provide the capability to read two distinct signals simultaneously making the popular application of reading voltage and current simultaneous a simple task.
Many additional system-level functions have also been incorporated into the LPC936 to reduce component count, board space and lower system cost, giving designers overall better value and improved performance capabilities.
"We have been using the LPC932 and were looking forward to larger memory products in the LPC900 family. The LPC936's dual ADCs and doubling of the memory to 16KB make it the ideal solution for our new and more complex projects," said Mr. Zhou Li-Gong, President of ZLG MCU Development Co., LTD.
"This is the continuing proliferation of the LPC900 family to larger code size and more integrated peripherals," said Ted Hwa, Microcontroller Marketing Manager, "Parts with greater than 16KB Flash code memory are also slated to be introduced in 2005."
Armed with Byte-Erasable Flash technology for enhanced flexibility, the LPC900 family is based on a high-performance processor architecture that executes instructions in 167 ns at 12 MHz (600 percent improvement over the traditional 80C51). By offering ADC/DAC functionality, customers no longer need to use separate ADC or DAC on their printed circuit boards (PCBs) thus saving component count and PCB space. The ADCs allow the customers the ability to define out-of-bound interrupt, thereby freeing up the CPU to handle other tasks and improving overall performance when the analog signal is not in the region of interest.
LPC936 Features
- 16KB Flash for programming and reprogramming on-chip and in the field
- Footprint compatible to the LPC935
- Dual ADC on-chip
- A real-time clock (RTC) and three other 16-bit counter/times for enhanced timing functions
- Serial communication channels such as a 400 kHz byte-wide I2C-bus, enhanced UART and SPI
- Available in low cost packages such TSSOP28 and HVQFN28
Tools and support
To further assist developers easily integrate advanced technology into everyday devices, the LPC936 family is fully supported by low-cost development tools including programmers, emulators and evaluation boards from Keil, Ceibo, Hi-Lo, LPC Tools, Philips, System General and ZLG.
Availability
The new LPC936 is available now.