Date: 14/11/2011

Freescale makes 200 MHz operating ARM Cortex-M based MCUs

The new Kinetis X series MCUs from Freescale Semiconductor based on ARM Cortex-M4 core (with DSP and floating point instructions) operate at operating frequency up to 200 MHz - the fastest of any Cortex-M-class MCU, claims Freescale. Kinetis X series internal memories include 1-4 Mbyte of flash and 0.5 Mbyte of SRAM, with multiple off-chip memory options also available for expansion headroom.

"Our customers' processing needs are evolving at a dramatic rate as they build products that are more powerful, connected and interactive than ever before," said Geoff Lees, vice president of Freescale's Industrial and Multi-Market MCU business. "The Kinetis X series provides a level of performance, memory and feature integration not previously seen in this class of MCUs and gives our customers the design flexibility they need to stay at the forefront of their markets."

The other key features of X series include:

Kinetis X series MCUs 32 KB of tightly coupled SRAM for single-cycle access to scratchpad data
Offers 64-channel DMA controller
Includes a 64-bit AXI bus, a first in Cortex-M class MCUs.
Offer 1 to 4 Mbyte of embedded flash memory and 0.5 Mbyte of ECC-enabled SRAM
A flash-less version will also be available.
For further expansion, virtually any type of external memory can be addressed (including NOR and NAND flash, serial flash, SRAM, low-power DDR2 and DDR3).
Features interfaces such as Ethernet, high-speed USB On-The-Go, CAN, IIS and serial communication interfaces, as well as cryptographic acceleration and tamper detection units.
Applications that require a graphical user interface (GUI) can select from a low-power segment LCD or graphics LCD controller. The large amount of on-chip SRAM supports graphics LCD panels of up to WQVGA resolution without the need for an external frame buffer. If required, this can easily be expanded to accommodate higher-resolution panels using external, low-cost 8-bit DRAM.
For the rapid development of embedded GUIs, Freescale offers the PEG (Portable Embedded GUI) WindowBuilder suite and the complimentary, low-resource eGUI LCD driver.

Availability: Freescale plans to provide Kinetis X series alpha samples and development tools to select customers in Q2 2012, with production quantities available in Q1 2013. For more information, visit http://www.freescale.com/kinetis/xseries.