Atmel samples its first Cortex-M4-based flash MCU
Colin Holland, EE Times -- EDN, October 26, 2011
ARM TechCon—Atmel is sampling to lead customers the Cortex-M4 processor-based SAM4S16 and unveilled its fifth generation Cortex-M4-based flash MCUs.
Throughout 2012, the SAM3 and SAM4 families will quadruple the Atmel Cortex-M product portfolio to nearly 200 ARM-based microcontrollers and will include devices with on-chip memory densities of up to 2MB flash, 192KB of SRAM and peripherals including high-speed USB.
Several devices in the Atmel ARM Cortex-M4 Flash family will also include a FPU (floating point unit) expanding the portfolio into the DSC (digital signal controller) market.
The SAM4S16 device operates at a maximum speed of 120MHz with 1024KB flash and 128KB SRAM with a full peripheral set featuring full-speed USB, high-speed SDIO/SD/MMC, UARTs, TWIs, SPI, I2S, 12-bit ADC and DAC and an external bus interface supporting PSRAM, LCD modules, NOR Flash, and NAND flash.
The device provides hardware code protection and supports Atmel QTouch technology for touch button, slider and wheel functionality targeting the industrial markets.
Running ARM DSP library, the Atmel Cortex-M4 based SAM4 family has an execution speed boost of 2X for fixed-point and 10X for floating-point DSP algorithms over the Cortex-M3 SAM3 family.
Atmel ARM Cortex-M4 processor-based flash microcontrollers, planned for market introduction in 2012, will provide up to 2MB flash, 192KB of SRAM, extensive peripherals that include high-speed USB OTG with on-chip transceiver, and Ethernet and CAN.
The ARM-based SAM4 devices are tailored for applications in the medical, power management, motor control, smart metering, industrial automation and embedded audio segments.
Since 1998, Atmel has introduced four generations of upward-compatible ARM processor-based flash MCUs including the SAM3, SAM9XE, SAM7 and FR40162 families.
The SAM4 devices are upward, pin-to-pin compatible with the Atmel ARM Cortex-M3-based SAM3 flash MCU products.
The Atmel SAM4S16 is sampling to early customers now. Other devices in the SAM4 family will be introduced throughout 2012. Production quantities of the SAM4S devices will be available in the second quarter of 2012.
This story was originally posted by EE Times.
