ARM-based MCU suits USB-enabled embedded control apps

Atmel Corp. has announced the AT91SAM9R64 ARM9-based MCU for high-performance, USB-enabled embedded control applications. Designed to boot from the USB port, SDCard or an external NAND flash, the SAM9R64 offers the flexibility to reduce the number of memories for program and bulk data storage. In addition, the 32bit MCU is optimized for space-constrained applications, or intelligent USB High speed to SDIO, or SPI connectivity modules by being in a 10mm x 10mm, 0.8mm ball pitch, BGA package.

High Speed (480Mbit/sec) USB is rapidly becoming the standard for system-to-PC connectivity. The SAM9R64 offers an upgrade for existing USB Full Speed (12Mbit/sec) designs to High Speed USB that does not require any physical change in the connectors and is already supported by most PCs. The higher bandwidth enables fast transfer of large data logs and software updates, greatly improving the efficiencies of system maintenance and service.

Programmable memory bus voltage. In addition to traditional static memories, the SAM9R64 memory bus interface supports SDRAM and NAND flash. Where 3.3V memories are cheaper, 1.8V memories are required for power sensitive applications. In order to maintain the required performance level at 1.8V, the I/O pads include a booster that can be enabled via software.

The SAM9R64 has a 4KByte Instruction and 4Kbyte data cache, 64Kbytes of SRAM, USB High Speed device, 24 DMA channels, an MCI/SDIO interface, 5 UARTs, SPI, SSC, TWI, 6 Timers, 4 PWMs with high-drive I/Os, and a battery backup RTC and associated registers.

Atmel provides the GNU gcc C compiler, GNU gdb debugger free of charge. Commercial licenses from IAR (C compiler—Embedded Workbench, RTOS—Powerware), Mentor Graphics (RTOS—Nucleus PLUS), Micrium (RTOS—uCOS/II), ExpressLogic (RTOS—ThreadX) and Microsoft (OS—.NET Framework) are currently being ported for a complete embedded application prototyping.

Atmel provides a software package with register descriptions and device drivers for all peripherals and project examples that ease the use of the MCU. An evaluation board is available for benchmarking and a quick start in the development.

The AT91SAM9R64 is available in a 10mm x 10mm, 0.8mm ball pitch, 144-pin BGA package and is priced at $5.85 in volumes of 10,000 units.