NXP Semiconductors has introduced the first two families—the MCX A14x and MCX A15x— in its MCX A microcontroller (MCU) series, developed as part of its scalable MCX portfolio of microcontrollers that was unveiled last year for industrial and IoT edge applications. The all-purpose MCX A family is a low-cost and small-footprint MCU series packed with autonomous smart peripherals that balances cost, performance and power consumption, required by many embedded applications, including industrial sensors, motor control, battery or handheld power system controllers and IoT devices.
The MCX A allows developers to do more with higher performance, better efficiency and more advanced autonomous intelligent peripherals, and it comes together with a flexible and rapid prototyping tool: the Freedom boards, said Romain Ricci, NXP’s regional marketing manager for MCUs EMEA.
Designed for secure edge-connected applications, the MCX family is comprised of four series of 32-bit MCUs, built on a common platform, with different features and functionality. In addition to the analog-focused MCX A series, the other families include the high-performance MCX N series with on-chip accelerators, MCS W series for low-power wireless connectivity and the ultra-low–power MCX L series.
MCX portfolio (Source: NXP Semiconductors)
This secure connected age brings several challenges to designers, Ricci said. These challenges include the need for always more performance but at no cost to efficiency of the devices (so lower power consumption), and in terms of time to market, there is a need for tools that deliver rapid and flexible prototyping, he added.
The MCX family addresses the need for more performance with its scalability in performance and integration. One key aspect of this scalability is that the entire portfolio—MCX A, MCX N, MCX L and MCX W—uses the same Arm Cortex M-33 core.
“There are different flavors of the Cortex-M33—with or without options, with different CPU speeds as single- or dual-core—but it is always the same core for scalability across the whole portfolio,” Ricci said.
This means the portfolio offers a variety of feature sets for different applications, including peripheral sets, IP functionality and package options with pin-to-pin compatibility, he continued.
In addition to hardware and software compatibility across the portfolio, also contributing to this scalability is NXP’s MCUXpresso, which Ricci calls a one-stop shop for development tools that enable customers to design on all of its microcontrollers.
The all-purpose MCX A MCUs
The MCX A is positioned as the entry-level series for the MCX family, complementing the portfolio but also bringing more performance and functionality than what has been in the market for this type of MCU. It targets a broad range of applications. Some examples cited include factory automation and building control in industrial applications; embedded applications like industrial/consumer HMI, general-purpose embedded control, handheld devices and power tools; and smart-home applications like smart appliances, home entertainment, and health and fitness.
The additional performance can be used for applications like predictive maintenance or anomaly detection for simpler devices or to do more complex things on the edge, Ricci said.
MCX A MCUs (Source: NXP Semiconductors)
The MCX A series features an Arm Cortex-M33 core, with the MCX A14x running up to 48 MHz and the MCX A15x running up to 96 MHz. The devices offer support for low-power peripheral sets, BLDC/PMSM motor control and integrated sensor interfaces (MIPI-I3C, I2C, SPI).
The series provides 128-kB flash with 4 kB of cache and up to 32-kB RAM, which is more than what is typically provided in this range of MCU, Ricci said, together with 8-kB ECC, which is needed to port some of the functional safety algorithms.
The series will offer a variety of package and memory variants up to 1-MB flash as the platform expands throughout 2024. They are currently available in 64LQFP, 48QFN and 32QFN packages.
Each MCX A device includes a selection of smart peripherals that act autonomously, independent of the CPU, allowing the CPU to run at a lower frequency and reduce power consumption, NXP said.
The intelligent peripherals include serial communications with built-in buffers, programmable data collection range, DMA, an analog-to-digital converter, a digital-to-analog converter and an operational amp with built-in intelligence for averaging and peak detection. The motor control subsystem features FlexPWM with deadtime control and an encoder for motor applications.
In terms of power efficiency, the MCX A has intelligent peripherals that operate autonomously, independent of the MCU core, reducing power consumption, and it also is built on a power-efficient process, a 40-nm low-leakage technology that offers advanced power efficiency, Ricci said. It also offers low-power modes that help optimize the power consumption of the microcontroller, he added.
Block diagram of
MCX A14x and MCX A15x MCUs (Source: NXP Semiconductors)
The MCX A’s power architecture is designed to support high utilization of I/Os and power efficiency with a simple supply circuit in a smaller footprint. It also supports more GPIO pins for additional external connections (up to 52 GPIOs in the 64LQFP package), enabling designers to use a smaller package, which simplifies board design and lowers system BOM costs, NXP said.
Also contributing to the space savings is the USB PHY embedded on the MCU, Ricci said.
He also noted that the capless LDO on the power supply side helps maximize the amount of GPIOs on the MCU. He believes the MCX A can offer up to 57 GPIOs in the 64LQFP package, so there may be an update soon.
Developers also get a choice of development environments. Developers can work with either MCUXpresso for Visual Studio Code or NXP’s Eclipse-based MCUXpresso IDE, or with IDEs from IAR and Keil that also offer safety certification. NXP provides drivers and middleware with examples that work with all of these IDEs, along with additional tools for device configuration, security and specialist applications.
The MCX A series, along with the entire MCX portfolio, is supported by the MCUXpresso developer ecosystem and NXP’s Freedom (FRDM) development boards. These low-cost boards are designed to speed up prototyping for a variety of end applications and include industry-standard headers, providing easy access to the MCU’s I/Os, and on-board MCU-Link debug probe and USB-C cables.
Developers can use MCUXpresso Visual Studio Code and NXP’s Eclipse-based MCUXpresso IDE and now the low-cost and scalable Freedom platform for rapid prototyping, with access to a broad range of expansion boards and application examples, Ricci said.
NXP’s Expansion Board Hub offers add-on boards from NXP and its partner ecosystem, with related MCUXpresso SDK-compatible drivers and examples. These add-on boards, also known as shields, come with standard, pre-populated headers to connect to the FRDM boards. They provide Arduino, mikroeBUS, Pmod and FRDM industry-standard headers.
These offerings make it easier for developers to create solutions, leveraging technologies like audio, connectivity, motor control, machine learning, graphics, touch, voice and sensing. The new Application Code Hub provides MCU software examples, code snippets and application software packs developed by NXP. A range of compatible middleware and tools from NXP’s partner ecosystem are also available.
The MCX A14x and A15x families are now available. The first set of MCX FRDM boards, including the FRDM-MCXA153, based on MCX A devices, and the FRDM-MCXN947 for the recently announced MCX N devices are currently available, with more planned for release. All devices and Freedom boards are available through distribution.
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