Microprocessors

Infineon has announced a family microcontrollers combining an Arm Cortex-M55 core (including ‘Helium’ DSP support), an Arm Ethos-U55 machine learning processor, and an Arm Cortex-M33 core, which has in-built security, paired with Infineon’s own ‘NNLite’ neural network accelerator. “Support for ‘always-on’ sensing and response makes the devices ideal for IoT and industrial segments such as smart home, security, wearables and ...

ST is trying harder to displace 8bit MCUs with its entry-level 32bit STM32C0 series by boosting flash to 128kbyte and adding a USB controller. The devices will be called STM32C071, are scheduled to arrive by mid-2024, to be followed by 256kbyte flash STM32C091 models sampling later that year. This is not to say that the company is deserting 8bit MCUs: ...

Calista Redmond is passionate about securing a strong hardware and software ecosystem for the open instruction set architecture and technology’s role in creating positive change. Interview by Caroline Hayes. Risc-V International promotes adoption of the open standard instruction set and an ecosystem of hardware and software. Calista says the momentum is international, with a strong balance of Risc-V development and ...

Mouser and Microchip  have produced an eBook highlighting the value propositions and use cases for 8-bit MCUs entitled The Mighty 8-Bit Microcontroller. In automotive applications, 8-bit MCUs can be preferred in vehicle subsystems because of their simplicity and efficiency, which help keep the design compact. Microchip offers solutions, such as select AVR EA MCUs, tailored to automotive applications and featuring compliance ...

Designed for work in circuits with varied voltage levels. Until recently, a very common problem faced by electronic circuit designers was the difference in supply voltage standards between microcontrollers (e.g. 3.3 V) and peripheral ICs (e.g. 5 V). In order for them to operate together, the use of additional voltage translators was required, which made the device more complicated and ...

Renesas has revealed more on the Arm Cortex-M85 based microcontrollers it announced at Embedded World in May, and started shipping them today. Initial parts are general-purpose and consigned to what Renesas has named the RA8M1 group of the RA8 series. Common specs of RA8M1 parts are: 480MHz Cortex-M85 with Helium and TrustZone, 1 or 2Mbyte programme flash, 12kbyte data flash, ...

To prevent intellectual property leakage, Segger has introduced a package that programmes microcontrollers securely at third party locations such as contract manufactures. Even the programmer-to-MCU connection is secured against ‘sniffing’, because captured signals are one-time encrypted. The scheme is implemented by the company’s Flasher Secure programmer hardware, combined with software dubbed ‘Telp’ for ‘target encrypted link package’. It works like ...

Qualcomm has developed a smartphone processor for on-device generative AI. Called Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, “this platform unlocks a new era of generative AI enabling users to generate unique content, help with productivity, and other breakthrough use cases,” claimed company general manager Chris Patrick. Certain large language (LLM) and language vision models (LVM) will be supported locally, as will transformer ...

Qualcomm has revealed a 4nm Arm-based 12core laptop processor: Snapdragon X Elite. Its 12 64bit cores run at up to 3.8GHz, then two of these can be boosted to 4.3GHz. The on-board GPU is rated at 4.6Tflop/s and supports DX12, and a separate neural processor (NPU) is rated at 45Top/s – the data type has not been specified in either ...

NXP has announced a dual-band concurrent Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio for automotive use that includes security. Called AW693, it is a dual Wi-Fi 6/6E and and Bluetooth 5.3 device supporting four modes: CDW 2×2 Wi-Fi 6/6E 5GHz + 1×1 Wi-Fi 6 2.4GHz CDW 1×1 Wi-Fi 6/6E 5GHz + 1×1 Wi-Fi 6 2.4GHz 2×2 Wi-Fi 6 2.4GHz 2×2 Wi-Fi 6/6E 5GHz ...