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Atmel ARM-based processors are microcontrollers and microprocessors integrated circuits, by Microchip Technology (previously Atmel), that are based on various 32-bit ARM processor cores, with in-house designed peripherals and tool support. [1]
ARM licenses the core design for a series of 32-bit processors. ARM does not manufacture any complete silicon products, just intellectual property (IP). The ARM processors are RISC (reduced instruction set computing). This is similar to Microchip's AVR 8-bit products, a later adoption of RISC architecture. Whereas the AVR architecture used Harvard architecture exclusively, some ARM cores are Harvard (Cortex-M3) and others are Von Neumann architecture (ARM7TDMI).
Semiconductor companies such as Microchip take the ARM cores, which use a consistent set of instructions and register naming, and add peripheral circuits such as ADCs (analog to digital converters), clock management, and serial communications such as USART, SPI, I2C, CAN, LIN, USB, Ethernet, and LCD, Camera or Touch controllers. Microchip made efforts to adapt advanced peripherals and power management that used very little power and can operate independently without having the CPU core powered up (sleepwalking). They also provided for DMA between external interfaces and memories increasing data throughput with minimal processor intervention.
Microchip sells both MCUs (microcontroller units) that have internal Flash memory, and MPUs (microprocessor units) that use external memory. In addition to the chips themselves, Microchip offers demo boards, both on its website, and through distribution channels such as Digi-key, Farnell, Ineltek, Arrow, Avnet, Future Electronics, and Mouser.
Some of the Microchip ARM-based products are meant for specific applications, such as their SAM4CP that is used in smart-grid energy meters.
Microcontrollers have internal program memory as well as the conventional internal registers and RAM. Microchip ARM MCUs range from the SAM D10 series with as few as 14 pins, to the 144-pin SAM S70 and SAM E70 products.
The SAM4S, SAM4N, SAM3S, SAM3N, SAM7S (64-pin) families have pin-compatible IC footprints, except for USB device, though they are not voltage level compatible. [20]
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The Atmel C family was launched in May 2015. [21] Based on Cortex-M0+, pin and code compatible with the SAM D and SAM L series, [21] with wide operating voltage ranges (2.7–5.5 V), CAN bus, and up to 12 DMA controller channels.
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The SAM D (ATSAMD) [22] family from Microchip consists of four different sub series (SAM D10, SAM D11, SAM D20, SAM D21). The devices are all based on the ARM Cortex-M0+ processor and offer different pin, memory, and feature combinations. The devices are pin- and code-compatible and share peripherals like the Event System and the SERCOM module for reconfigurable multiplexed serial communication ports. [23] This microcontroller family is used on various hobbyist development boards, such as Arduino Zero (ATSAMD21G18), [24] [25] Sparkfun SAMD21 Mini Breakout (ATSAMD21G18), [26] and Seeed Studio XIAO SAMD21 (ATSAMD21G18). [27]
The SAM D5X/E5X and SAM D51 feature the 32-bit Cortex-M4F.
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In 2009 Atmel announced the ATSAM3U line of flash-based microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M3 processor, as a higher end evolution of the SAM7 microcontroller products. They have a top clock speed in the range of 100 MHz, and come in a variety of flash sizes. In the summer 2009 these parts were still sampling, and a development board had recently been made available.
In December 2009, the ATSAM3S line was announced. This features several enhancements for lower power operation and bill of materials cost reduction.
Market watchers observe that these Cortex-M3 products are competition for Atmel's own AVR32 UC3A products. Both are microcontrollers with largely identical peripherals and other hardware technology, flash-based, similar clock speeds, and with dense 16/32 bit RISC instruction sets.
The ATSAM4 is based on the ARM Cortex-M4 core. The SAM4E includes a FPU (Floating-Point Unit). The SAM4C includes a dual-core ARM Cortex-M4 (one core with a FPU).
1 August 2017, the ATSAMD5x and ATSAME5x family was announced. This features several enhancements for lower power operation and more peripherals, Ethernet and CANBUS-FD in SAME5x series. Archived 2019-11-06 at the Wayback Machine
These are based on the ARM Cortex-M7 core.
There are a wide variety of AT91 flash-based microcontrollers, based on ARM7TDMI cores. These chips have a top clock speed in the range of 60 MHz, and come with a variety of flash sizes and peripheral sets.
The AT91SAM9XE flash-based microcontrollers are based on the ARM926ej-s cores. They have a top clock speed in the range of 200 up to 400 MHz, and come with a variety of flash sizes. They somewhat resemble flash-equipped AT91SAM9260 chips.
Microchip introduced the AT91SAM9 processors (using the ARM926ej-s core, with the ARMv5TEJ architecture) as its first broad market follow on to the highly successful AT91RM9200 processor. These processors improved on that predecessor by using less power, incorporating a newer and more powerful ARM core, and providing a variety of chips with different peripheral sets. While most are clocked at up to about 200 MHz, some can run at twice that speed. Processors include:
This series is based on the ARM Cortex-A5 core. [3] [29]
Integrated development environments:
The amount of documentation for all ARM chips is daunting, especially for newcomers. The documentation for microcontrollers from past decades would easily be inclusive in a single document, but as chips have evolved so has the documentation grown. The total documentation is especially hard to grasp for all ARM chips since it consists of documents from the IC manufacturer (for example, Microchip) and documents from CPU core vendor (ARM Holdings).
A typical top-down documentation tree is: manufacturer website, manufacturer marketing slides, manufacturer datasheet for the exact physical chip, manufacturer detailed reference manual that describes common peripherals and aspects of a physical chip family, ARM core generic user guide, ARM core technical reference manual, ARM architecture reference manual that describes the instruction set(s).
Microchip has additional documents, such as: evaluation board user manuals, application notes, getting started guides, software library documents, errata, and more. See External Links section for links to official Microchip and ARM documents.
A microcontroller or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of ferroelectric RAM, NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a small amount of RAM. Microcontrollers are designed for embedded applications, in contrast to the microprocessors used in personal computers or other general purpose applications consisting of various discrete chips.
AVR is a family of microcontrollers developed since 1996 by Atmel, acquired by Microchip Technology in 2016. These are modified Harvard architecture 8-bit RISC single-chip microcontrollers. AVR was one of the first microcontroller families to use on-chip flash memory for program storage, as opposed to one-time programmable ROM, EPROM, or EEPROM used by other microcontrollers at the time.
AVR32 is a 32-bit RISC microcontroller architecture produced by Atmel. The microcontroller architecture was designed by a handful of people educated at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, including lead designer Øyvind Strøm and CPU architect Erik Renno in Atmel's Norwegian design center.
ARM9 is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Holdings for microcontroller use. The ARM9 core family consists of ARM9TDMI, ARM940T, ARM9E-S, ARM966E-S, ARM920T, ARM922T, ARM946E-S, ARM9EJ-S, ARM926EJ-S, ARM968E-S, ARM996HS. Since ARM9 cores were released from 1998 to 2006, they are no longer recommended for new IC designs, instead ARM Cortex-A, ARM Cortex-M, ARM Cortex-R cores are preferred.
Segger Microcontroller, founded in 1992, is a private company involved in the embedded systems industry. It provides products used to develop and manufacture four categories of embedded systems: real-time operating systems (RTOS) and software libraries (middleware), debugging and trace probes, programming tools, and in-system programmers. The company is headquartered in Monheim am Rhein, Germany, with remote offices in Gardner, Massachusetts; Milpitas, California; and Shanghai, China.
The i.MX range is a family of Freescale Semiconductor proprietary microcontrollers for multimedia applications based on the ARM architecture and focused on low-power consumption. The i.MX application processors are SoCs (System-on-Chip) that integrate many processing units into one die, like the main CPU, a video processing unit, and a graphics processing unit for instance. The i.MX products are qualified for automotive, industrial, and consumer markets. Most of them are guaranteed for a production lifetime of 10 to 15 years.
Devices that use i.MX processors include Ford Sync, the Amazon Kindle and Kobo eReader series of e-readers until 2021, Zune, Sony Reader, Onyx Boox readers/tablets, SolidRun SOM's, Purism's Librem 5, some Logitech Harmony remote controls and Squeezebox radio and some Toshiba Gigabeat MP4 players. The i.MX range was previously known as the "DragonBall MX" family, the fifth generation of DragonBall microcontrollers. i.MX originally stood for "innovative Multimedia eXtension".
EFM32 Gecko MCUs are a family of mixed-signal 32-bit microcontroller integrated circuits from Energy Micro based on ARM Cortex-M CPUs, including the Cortex-M0+, Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4.
The ARM Cortex-M is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Limited. These cores are optimized for low-cost and energy-efficient integrated circuits, which have been embedded in tens of billions of consumer devices. Though they are most often the main component of microcontroller chips, sometimes they are embedded inside other types of chips too. The Cortex-M family consists of Cortex-M0, Cortex-M0+, Cortex-M1, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M4, Cortex-M7, Cortex-M23, Cortex-M33, Cortex-M35P, Cortex-M55, Cortex-M85. A floating-point unit (FPU) option is available for Cortex-M4 / M7 / M33 / M35P / M55 / M85 cores, and when included in the silicon these cores are sometimes known as "Cortex-MxF", where 'x' is the core variant.
STM32 is a family of 32-bit microcontroller integrated circuits by STMicroelectronics. The STM32 chips are grouped into related series that are based around the same 32-bit ARM processor core: Cortex-M0, Cortex-M0+, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M4, Cortex-M7, Cortex-M33. Internally, each microcontroller consists of ARM processor core(s), flash memory, static RAM, debugging interface, and various peripherals.
XMC is a family of microcontroller ICs by Infineon. The XMC microcontrollers use the 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores from ARM Holdings, such as Cortex-M4F and Cortex-M0. XMC stands for "cross-market microcontrollers", meaning that this family can cover due to compatibility and configuration options, a wide range in industrial applications. The family supports three essential trends in the industry: It increases the energy efficiency of the systems, supports a variety of communication standards and reduces software complexity in the development of the application's software environment with the parallel released eclipse-based software tool DAVE.
LPC is a family of 32-bit microcontroller integrated circuits by NXP Semiconductors. The LPC chips are grouped into related series that are based around the same 32-bit ARM processor core, such as the Cortex-M4F, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M0+, or Cortex-M0. Internally, each microcontroller consists of the processor core, static RAM memory, flash memory, debugging interface, and various peripherals. The earliest LPC series were based on the Intel 8-bit 80C51 core. As of February 2011, NXP had shipped over one billion ARM processor-based chips.
The ATmega328 is a single-chip microcontroller created by Atmel in the megaAVR family. It has a modified Harvard architecture 8-bit RISC processor core.
Netduino was an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on the .NET Micro Framework. It uses the ARM Cortex-M 32-bit RISC ARM processor core as a 32-bit ARM-microcontroller. The Netduino boards are designed to be pin-compatible with most Arduino shields. Applications can be built on Windows, or on Mac OS. The platform is similar in concept to the Arduino platform, but is generally more powerful and instead of writing applications in C/C++ or Wiring, applications are written in C#, which brings powerful, high-level language constructs to the toolbox such as threading, event handling, automatic garbage collection, and more.
The Arduino Uno is an open-source microcontroller board based on the Microchip ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU) and developed by Arduino.cc and initially released in 2010. The microcontroller board is equipped with sets of digital and analog input/output (I/O) pins that may be interfaced to various expansion boards (shields) and other circuits. The board has 14 digital I/O pins, 6 analog I/O pins, and is programmable with the Arduino IDE, via a type B USB cable. It can be powered by a USB cable or a barrel connector that accepts voltages between 7 and 20 volts, such as a rectangular 9-volt battery. It has the same microcontroller as the Arduino Nano board, and the same headers as the Leonardo board. The hardware reference design is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 license and is available on the Arduino website. Layout and production files for some versions of the hardware are also available.
The MSP432 is a mixed-signal microcontroller family from Texas Instruments. It is based on a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F CPU, and extends their 16-bit MSP430 line, with a larger address space for code and data, and faster integer and floating point calculation than the MSP430. Like the MSP430, it has a number of built-in peripheral devices, and is designed for low power requirements. In 2021, TI confirmed that the MSP432 has been discontinued and "there will be no new MSP432 products".
The Arduino Nano is an open-source breadboard-friendly microcontroller board based on the Microchip ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU) and developed by Arduino.cc and initially released in 2008. It offers the same connectivity and specs of the Arduino Uno board in a smaller form factor.
Apache Mynewt is a modular real-time operating system for connected Internet of things (IoT) devices that must operate for long times under power, memory, and storage constraints. It is free and open-source software incubating under the Apache Software Foundation, with source code distributed under the Apache License 2.0, a permissive license that is conducive to commercial adoption of open-source software.
In computing, autonomous peripheral operation is a hardware feature found in some microcontroller architectures to off-load certain tasks into embedded autonomous peripherals in order to minimize latencies and improve throughput in hard real-time applications as well as to save energy in ultra-low-power designs.
RP2040 is a 32-bit dual ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller integrated circuit by Raspberry Pi Ltd. In January 2021, it was released as part of the Raspberry Pi Pico board.
