Date: 23/01/2009
Freecale launches a new MCU, and also a free RTOS with TCP/IP stack
Freescale has announced a mix of new silicon and software for embedded system developers. Freescale has released to market 32-bit ColdFire microcontroller family bundled with real-time operating system (RTOS) called MQX and telecom protocol stacks.
The new microcontroller family MCF5225x has builtin USB, Ethernet, controller area network (CAN) and encryption.
The MCF5225x microcontroller family is suggested for industrial networking, building/lighting control and medical applications where processing power and communication are important . For factory automation systems, the MCF5225x MCU’s USB port can be used to develop interfaces to standard USB barcode scanners, and the embedded Fast Ethernet controller makes it easy to control various terminals in a networked building. When used in building control applications, the MCU’s embedded cryptographic accelerator unit enables secure communications through Ethernet. The MCU’s USB connectivity supports fast, easy downloads of patient data for medical applications, and its serial connectivity options simplify connection to wireless modules and LCD screens used in personal medical devices.
This MCU family also feature serial peripheral interface (SPI), two inter-integrated circuit (I2C) buses and three universal asynchronous receiver transmitters (UARTs).
The MCF5225x MCUs feature an on-chip cryptographic accelerator unit and random number generator designed to help safeguard valuable data and intellectual property during transmissions across industrial and building control networks. The encryption module supports DES, 3DES, AES, MD5 and SHA-1 algorithms.
The MCF5225x MCUs feature a 32-bit ColdFire V2 core designed to deliver up to 76 Dhrystone 2.1 MIPS at 80 MHz. The devices offer ample embedded memory (up to 512 KB flash and 64 KB SRAM) for performance-intensive applications and simplified coding. An enhanced multiply-accumulate controller (EMAC) with hardware divide capability and a direct-memory access (DMA) controller enhance system performance by freeing the ColdFire core to perform other tasks.
The MCF5225x also provide external memory interfaces and an external bus to add more memory and/or peripherals.
Other specifications and features of MCF5225x MCU family are,
1. ColdFire V2 core with 66 MHz and 80 MHz options
2. External Mini-FlexBus interface
3. Up to 512Kbytes of flash memory
4. Up to 64Kbytes SRAM
5. Timers: 2-channel periodic interrupt timer; 4-channel 32-bit DMA timers; 4-channel 16-bit capture/compare/PWM timers
6. Real-time clock with 32kHz crystal
7. 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC)
8. Up to 56 general-purpose I/Os (GPIOs)
9. Supply voltage range: 3 V - 3.6 V
Package: 100-pin and 144-pin LQFP, 144 MAPBGA
Pricing and availability
MCF5225x product samples are available now. Suggested resale pricing for the MCF5225x family starts at $4.93 (USD) in 10,000-unit quantities.
Freescale MQX RTOS features:
1. RTOS with full priority-based, preemptive scheduler
2. Real-time TCP/IP communication suite (RTCS) with TCP/IP, FTP, Telnet, DHCP, SNMP and more
3. USB host and device stacks (HID, MASS, HUB)
4. MS-DOS file system (MFS )
5. Board support package (BSP) I/O driver supporting CAN, UART and more
6. HTTP Web server support
7. Supported by CodeWarrior Development Studio with kernel and task awareness
8. IAR development suite support with Freescale MQX RTOS awareness planned for 2009
“By combining our embedded silicon with Freescale MQX software, we’re now offering developers a single source for hardware, RTOS, connectivity stacks and development tools,” said Aiden Mitchell, director of industrial and multi-market MCUs at Freescale. “This streamlined, all-inclusive platform solution allows embedded system designers to focus on application development in an efficient way that reduces cost and complexity and accelerates time-to-market.”
According to recent embedded market research conducted by TechInsights, development teams spend 64 percent of their resources on software. Embedded projects based on 32-bit devices have a greater need for software reuse to manage development costs. Nearly 90 percent of developers report that they reuse code from previous projects. The Freescale MQX RTOS and software stacks address these needs by providing a scalable, reusable platform designed to work across a wide range of Freescale processor architectures, development tools and third-party software environments.
Freescale silicon ships with full production Freescale MQX source code, including communications software stacks at no additional cost. Freescale is able to provide customers a commercial-friendly software licensing model, enabling developers to keep their source modifications while being able to distribute the required binary code.
The Freescale MQX RTOS offers an application programming interface (API) with a modular, component-based architecture. It also allows developers to add Web servers, e-mail, network management, security and routing to their designs. Components are linked in only if needed, preventing unused functions from bloating the memory footprint.
Freescale MQX software offers preemptive real-time performance with optimized context switch and interrupt times, enabling fast, highly predictable response times. It can be configured with in 6 KB of ROM, including kernel, interrupts, semaphores, queues and memory manager.
Freescale software partner Embedded Access provides engineering services to speed device development based on MQX platforms, Embedded Access provides training, technical support and software product licensing.