An eclectic mix
31
May
2017
There was an eclectic mix of incremental changes at Microchip/Atmel, Nuvoton, NXP, Renesas, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments with new Cortex-M7s and more low power MCUs. Is Microchip starting a slow realignment of its portfolio with DSPIC33 declining in favor of the PIC32? Microchip announced the PIC32MK: another sign that Cortex-M and proprietary architectures are here to stay side by side?
A few parts made it out this month in the AT Tiny family, the ATTiny1614 and 1616 bring new (smaller) package options to the existing ATTiny1617.
The ATMega gave up 10 part numbers mostly tape and reel versions.
On the Cortex-M front, the activity was concentrated on the ATSAME70 and S70, the powerful Cortex-M7 based families. The new parts add LQFP64 and BGA144 packages to the existing portfolio. 38 parts came out in total.
No change.
XMC4400F100F512ABXUMA1 migrated to XMC4400F100F512ABXQMA1.
The parts list for Microchip added 138 new MCUs, and took away only 64. All of the action took place with the PIC32MK and PIC32MX.
In particular, Microchip announced the PIC32MK earlier this month. The PIC32MK family targets precision dual Motor Control applications (PIC32MK MC) and General Purpose (PIC32MK GP) applications. All MC and GP devices feature a 120 MHz 32-bit core that supports DSP instructions. The devices come with up to 1MB Flash, 4 KB of EEPROM and 256kB SRAM.
Microchip also added parts to the existing PIC32MX, the PIC32MX154/174 and PIC32MX254/274, a 72MHz MIPS core packed with 128/256 kB of Flash.
The bleeding happened at the DSPIC33EP256/512 as well as the PIC24EP128/256/512.
No change this month.
10 products saw the light of the day this month. The 72 MHz Cortex-M0 NUC126 sports a crystal-less USB 2.0 FS interface, adjustable VDDIO pins (1.8V to 5.5V). Temperature ranges from -40℃ to 105℃, up to 256/20 kB of Flash/RAM with 48-, 64- or 100-pin packages. Its cousin, the M0564 is similar, but lacks the USB port.
The LPC546xx MCU family got 6 new parts (LPC54606xxx). The 180 MHz Cortex-M4 core is surrounded by USB+PHY, Ethernet and CAN interfaces and packaged in TFBGA or LQFP with 256 or 512 kB of Flash.
Renesas added a few parts to the RX24T, a group focused on dual inverter control with a built-in FPU. It supports 2.7 V to 5.5 V, and is pin-compatible with the RX62T Group.
It’s already the summer at SLAB: no change recorded in the portfolio.
A few parts were added in the PSoC4 family, but we could not find proper documentation. These are Z or ZT-suffix of existing parts.
STMicroelectronics increased its ARM Cortex-based STM32’s by 53 of which, 16 were mere package or temperature variations of existing parts.
The real news is the STM32L451/2 and STM32L462 families that add to the 141-strong STM32L4 series. The STM32L451/2xx devices embeds a Quad SPI, a 12-bit ADC, two comparators, one operational amplifier, one DAC channel. The L451 lacks the USB found on the L452.
Texas Instruments added over 33 new 16-bit low-power MSP430 to their listings.
The bulk of the new comers is found in the MSP430F2131 and MSP430F2132, beefed up versions (8-16 kB Flash) of the existing MSP430F210x/1x.
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