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.
XMC1000 is a 32-bit microcontroller family with a Cortex-M0 core by ARM Holdings which was first introduced in early 2013 by Infineon. [1] The family consists of XMC1100, XMC1200, XMC1300, XMC1400 sub family groups.
XMC4000 is a 32-bit microcontroller family with a Cortex-M4 core by ARM Holdings which was first introduced in early 2012 by Infineon. [2] This microcontroller family uses the Cortex-M4 processor core with DSP function which is represented in numerous applications. Target applications in the industrial sector and multi-market can be: Actuators, solar inverters, manufacturing and building-automation, renewable energy and transportation. The XMC4000 family is divided into further series covering the various service areas and price ranges.
The XMC4000 family is specifically designed for the industrial sector and positioned in the Infineon microcontroller portfolio between the 16 - bit and 32-bit MCU technology. The focus is on target areas such as logistics, transportation, renewable energy, building control, and automation. Moreover, the ongoing trend of worldwide energy efficiency can also be found in this family. The goal is to reduce energy consumptions in controls of motors, solar inverters, SMPS I/O devices, without burdening this performance.
XMC4000 uses an ARM Cortex-M4 core, including single cycle DSP MAC and floating point unit (FPU) covering a frequency range from 80 MHz to 180 MHz. It has up to 1 MB embedded Flash with built-in ECC hardware.
Chip | Performance | Timers | Signal processing | Communication | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Clock | Flash | RAM | Cache | POSIF | CCU4 (4ch) | CCU8 (4ch) | High-res PWM | ADC 12-bit | Delta-sigma demodulator | DAC | Ethernet MAC | USB | SD/MMC | Serial | External memory | CAN | Touch button | |
XMC4100 | 80 MHz | 128 kB | 20 kB | 4 kB | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | FS device | No | 4 | No | 2 | Yes | ||
XMC4200 | 80 MHz | 256 kB | 40 kB | 4 kB | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | FS device | No | 4 | No | 2 | Yes | ||
XMC4400 | 120 MHz | 512 kB | 80 kB | 4 kB | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | FS OTG | No | 4 | No | 2 | Yes |
XMC4500 | 120 MHz | 1 MB | 160 kB | 4 kB | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | FS OTG | Yes | 6 | Yes | 3 | Yes |
Both high-end family members have a 120 MHz CPU. Both XMC4500/XMC4400 are running on a 1 MB/512 kB flash and 160 kB/80 kB RAM.
Infineon expands in November 2012 the XMC4000 Microcontroller Family. Both families the XMC4200 and the XMC4100 run with an 80 MHz CPU using an ARM Cortex-M4 core architecture. The difference between those two members is that the XMC4200 has a 256 kB Flash, 40 kB and the XMC4100 a 128 kB Flash with 20 kB RAM.
The XMC4000 Application Kit is a modular, extensible application board consisting of a CPU board in the center and 3 satellites, the so-called extension boards. Due to this construction, the kit can be functionally extended to certain target applications and customized. The three satellites include the automation I/O Kit, an Ethernet / CAN / RS-485 Interface kit and a standard human interface kit. The Human Interface Board also (HMI), in addition to the OLED display plus audio, a touch and SD / MMC function. The COM board allows developers to create a kind of remote control over Ethernet. This board also supports MultiCAN and RS-485 interfaces. In addition to these three satellites, it allows developers to connect their own boards.
The Relax Kit and the Relax Lite Kit are low budget evaluation boards for the XMC4000 microcontroller family. The board contains the XMC4500 microcontroller (XMC4500-F100F1024 AA, Package: PG-LQFP-100), an ARM Cortex-M4F CPU running at 120 MHz, 1 MB Flash and 160 kB RAM. Besides that the Relax and Relax Lite Kit have a detachable on-board debugger so developers can download and validate the code without additional hardware. The Relax Kit and the Relax Lite Kit offer a complete set of on-board devices and plugs to run USB-based applications and to develop human machine interfaces with buttons and LEDs. The Relax Kit extends the feature set with an Ethernet-enabled communication option. It also allows developers to explore mass storage and file systems using a microSD card. In addition, it comes with serial flash memory. DAVE 3 is a suitable free software for those kits to reduce software developing time by using so called DAVE apps. Dave apps are sw component blocks which easily can be combined and implemented from the DAVE3 library.
DAVE (Digital Application Virtual Engineer) is an Eclipse-based software platform designed especially to reduce the software development effort and development time required for this. DAVE includes a GNU - compiler, a Debugger, and a visualization utility for graphic presentation of data. Other standard compiler and debugger can be added to the development environment. With pre-defined, tested applications, DAVE also supports automatic code generation. Alternatively, developers are free to integrate their own applications. Apps can be easily configured and adjusted using the graphical user interface to different applications.
Following development tool vendors support the XMC4000 family:
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 (Infineon) 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).
Access to this documentation on the infineon website is only granted after accepting a NDA like license. This license forbids publishing any information from these documents, except where one can prove that this information was previously published.
Infineon 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 XMC and ARM documents.
ARM is a family of RISC instruction set architectures (ISAs) for computer processors. Arm Ltd. develops the ISAs and licenses them to other companies, who build the physical devices that use the instruction set. It also designs and licenses cores that implement these ISAs.
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.
Atmel ARM-based processors are microcontrollers and microprocessors integrated circuits, by Microchip Technology, that are based on various 32-bit ARM processor cores, with in-house designed peripherals and tool support.
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. ARM9 cores were released from 1998 to 2006 and they are no longer recommended for new IC designs; recommended alternatives include ARM Cortex-A, ARM Cortex-M, and ARM Cortex-R cores.
PSoC is a family of microcontroller integrated circuits by Cypress Semiconductor. These chips include a CPU core and mixed-signal arrays of configurable integrated analog and digital peripherals.
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 Infineon XC800 family is an 8-bit microcontroller family, first introduced in 2005, with a dual cycle optimized 8051 "E-Warp" core. The XC800 family is divided into two categories, the A-Family for Automotive and the I-Family for Industrial and multi-market applications.
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-M52, Cortex-M55, Cortex-M85. A floating-point unit (FPU) option is available for Cortex-M4 / M7 / M33 / M35P / M52 / M55 / M85 cores, and when included in the silicon these cores are sometimes known as "Cortex-MxF", where 'x' is the core variant.
DAVE, or Digital Application Virtual Engineer, is a software development and code generation tool for microcontroller applications created in C/C++.
The Infineon XE166 family is a 16-bit microcontroller family, first introduced in 2007. The XE166 can be found in applications like servo drivers, appliance motors, industrial pumps, transportation and power supplies.
The Infineon XC2000 family is a 16-bit microcontroller that can be found in automotive applications including transmissions, hybrid applications, driver assistant systems and engine management.
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.
SmartFusion is a family of microcontrollers with an integrated FPGA of Actel. The device includes an ARM Cortex-M3 hard processor core and analog peripherals such as a multi-channel ADC and DACs in addition to their flash-based FPGA fabric.
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 Infineon XC2000 family is a 16-bit microcontroller that can be found in automotive applications including transmissions, hybrid applications, driver assistant systems and engine management systems.
AURIX is a 32-bit Infineon microcontroller family, targeting the automotive industry. It is based on multicore architecture of up to three independent 32-bit TriCore CPU's.
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".