Embedded Systems Academy

The new LPC4000 family of microcontrollers from NXP Semiconductors combines two powerful ARM Cortex cores in one microcontroller. The integrated Cortex-M4 and Cortex-M0 can run asymmetrically at up to 150MHz and have access to internal memory of up to 1MB Flash and 264k of RAM.
A multilayer bus matrix with 4 separate RAM blocks ensures that both microcontrollers have independent, fast access to “their” memory, minimizing wait-states.
Next to the “usual” LPCxxx peripherals the new devices also feature high-speed USB and an AES decryption engine for security.
There are several applications that benefit from a dual core solution. If a lot of communication is required, like handling complex communication protocols with specific timing requirements, a dual-core solutions allows using one core as a communication co-processor, clearly separating communication and process handling.
For more information, see NXP’s web pages.

I was visiting Embedded World this week and in regards to microcontrollers the trend towards 32bit continues. When it comes to marketing presence at a trade show, obviously less than 32bit where not “it” this year. Not only chip manufacturers, but also most of the development tools primarily focused on 32bit solutions. And the next impression one gets walking the aisles: ARM processors are the first choice in this arena, with a focus on the Cortex-M generation. At this year’s Embedded World, no other microcontroller architecture had a marketing presence anywhere near that of ARM. Read more…