Atmel has added five devices to its Sam 9 Arm 926-based family of microcontrollers for applications in M2M, industrial and building control, HVAC, point-of-sale terminals, printers and medical devices, smart grid with data concentrators, and human machine interfaces.
The Sam 9G15, 9G25, 9G35, 9X25 and 9X35 devices have technology features such as replacing sdram with DDR2 memory for more memory-intensive applications; nand flash support with 24bit ECC for reduced system cost; and more communications channels including dual 10/100 Ethernet, dual Can and up to three USB ports.
Atmel has also teamed with Conexant to enable soft modem implementation on the devices to lower the overall bill of materials by eliminating external components. The five microcontrollers operate at up to 400MHz and the core and peripherals consume 100mW at maximum performance.
“We are delighted to collaborate with microcontroller leader Atmel,” said Sailesh Chittipeddi, Conexant president and chief executive officer. “Soft modems play an essential role in a range of applications from PoS terminals, alarm systems, telecare and others requiring a publicly switched telephone network line.
“Now designers have access to a highly efficient and streamlined approach for deploying a soft modem while lowering the overall system cost.”
The devices also include a graphics LCD controller with hardware acceleration for more modern user interfaces in industrial applications. The LCD controller includes overlays, alpha blending, image scaling, rotating and colour space conversion to enable a more intuitive interface, while offloading the CPU.
“Atmel continues to expand its 32bit Arm-based portfolio to support our changing customer requirements,” said Jacko Wilbrink, director of Arm products at Atmel. “The new Sam 9 devices are ideal host processors for applications requiring DDR2 and nand flash support, a rich combination of wired and wireless communication interfaces plus advanced LCD support for a modern user experience.
“We are a leader in the 32bit microcontroller segment and will continue to bring innovative products to the market to meet our customers’ needs.”