USB On-the-Go and Host Capability with the ARM Cortex-M3 Processor

USB On-the-Go and Host Capability with the ARM Cortex-M3 Processor

Luminary Micro’s New Stellaris Microcontrollers Are Industry’s First Offering of USB On-the-Go and Host Capability with the ARM Cortex-M3 Processor

Thirty New Award-winning Stellaris Family Members Add USB Connectivity, Superior Motion Control Performance, Smaller Package Options, and Green Application Energy Efficiency

AUSTIN, TX, USA – April 15, 2008 – Luminary Micro (www.LuminaryMicro.com), creators of the award-winning Stellarisfamily of ARM Cortex-M3-based microcontrollers (MCUs), today announced thirty new Stellaris family members, including the first integration of Universal Serial Bus (USB) On-the-Go (OTG) and Host capability in the ARM Cortex-M3 architecture. Each of the 30 new Stellaris family members ships with the Stellaris Peripheral Driver Library and Bootloader conveniently preprogrammed in read-only memory (ROM), and each new microcontroller integrates the ARM PrimeCell 32-channel configurable µDMA controller, designed and specifically optimized by ARM for use with the Cortex-M3 processor and providing features normally only available in high-end application processors, such as advanced scatter/gather transfer modes. Additionally, the announcement strengthens the position of Stellaris microcontrollers in precise and safeguarded motor control applications with augmented IP for superior motion control capability.

Introduced today are 6 members of the Stellaris LM3S3000 USB series and 14 members of the Stellaris LM3S5000 CAN+USB series, marking the first time that USB On-the-Go or USB Host capability is available in an ARM Cortex-M3 architecture. Today’s announcement also adds 5 new 64-pin package members to the LM3S1000 real-time MCU series and 5 new 64-pin package members to the Stellaris LM3S2000 CAN series. Together with large on-chip memories, enhanced power management, and expansive I/O and control capabilities, the new Stellaris family members are optimized for industrial applications requiring reliable connectivity, including Motor and Motion Control, Factory Automation, Test and Measurement Instrumentation, HVAC and Building Control, Gaming Equipment, Medical Devices, Consumer Appliances, and Fire and Security.

New Industrial Connectivity Options With USB

With increased interest in industrial market segments, USB improves industrial connectivity by providing the advantages of hot swapping capability and power over a fast and standardized serial interface. With its USB Host and OTG support, the new Stellaris MCUs enable new applications of USB technology such as use of flash memory sticks for device configuration and storage logging information. The Stellaris LM3S3000 series and LM3S5000 series feature a USB controller that can be configured for USB Host-mode or USB Device-mode in compliance with the USB 2.0 specification for full speed operation. Several members of the LM3S3000 series and LM3S5000 series also allow the USB controller to be configured in the new USB On-the-Go-mode, allowing for usage in Host-mode or in Device-mode depending on the desired configuration in a given system state.

New Motion Control Capabilities

Stellaris microcontrollers have long featured a pulse width modulation (PWM) module especially designed for meticulous motion control, with capabilities typically found only on costly specialty devices. Today’s announcement extends this capability with up to eight full motion control PWM channels (4 pairs) and up to four fault-condition handling inputs to quickly provide low-latency shutdown and prevent damage to the motor being controlled. The enhanced PWM module also features a dead-band generator providing shoot-through protection, synchronization of timers enabling precise alignment of all edges, and an optional hardware quadrature encoder enabling precise positioning sensing.

Stellaris Peripheral Driver Library Now Included in On-Chip ROM

Each of the new Stellaris family members ships with the Stellaris family Peripheral Driver Library conveniently preprogrammed in read-only memory (ROM). The Stellaris Peripheral Driver Library is a royalty-free software library for controlling on-chip peripherals, and includes a bootloader capability. The library performs both peripheral initialization and peripheral control functions, with a choice of polled or interrupt-driven peripheral support, and takes full advantage of the stellar interrupt performance of the Cortex-M3 core. No special pragmas or custom assembly code prologue/epilogue functions are required. For applications desiring in-system programmability, the royalty-free Stellaris Bootloader included in the Stellaris Peripheral Driver Library can act as an application loader and support in-field firmware updates through the UART, I2C, or SSI interfaces.

Low Power Capabilities Offer Support for Energy-Efficient Green Applications

Many of the new MCUs feature a battery-backed hibernation module that includes a real-time clock, a generous 256 bytes of non-volatile battery-backed memory, and the ability to wake on a real-time clock match, external pin interrupt, or low battery event. Even using the real-time clock in hibernate mode, a standard CR2032 watch battery can support a Stellaris microcontroller in hibernate mode for over 3 years.

New Evaluation Kits Have Developers Up and Running in 10 Minutes or Less

This announcement includes two complete evaluation kits: the Stellaris LM3S3748 USB Host+Device Evaluation Kit (USD 109) and the Stellaris LM3S3768 USB On-the-Go Evaluation Kit (USD 119). Each feature-rich evaluation kit includes evaluation boards, all required cables, a choice of evaluation tools suites for popular development tools, documentation, the Stellaris Graphics Library, applications notes, and everything a developer needs to get up and running in 10 minutes or less, for a superb “out-of-the-box” experience. Both kits span the design spectrum from evaluation to prototyping to application-specific design by functioning both as an evaluation platform and as a serial in-circuit debug interface for any Stellaris microcontroller-based target board.

Software tools suite choices for the kits include evaluation versions of ARM RealView Microcontroller Development kit (MDK), IAR Embedded Workbench Kickstart Edition, Code Red Technologies tools suite, and CodeSourcery Sourcery G++ GNU tools. In addition, ported demos of RTOSes include FreeRTOS.org, Micrium µC/OS-II with µC/Probe embedded system monitoring, Express Logic ThreadX, CMX Systems CMX-RTX, Keil™ RTX, IAR PowerPac, SEGGER embOS, and Quadros RTXC. Communications stacks available for the new kits and microcontrollers include Express Logic USBX; Micriµm µC/USB Device, µC/USB Host, µC/Modbus and µC/CAN protocol stacks; CMX Systems CMX-MicroNet, CMX-USB Device, and CMX-CANopen protocol stacks; Quadros RTXCusb Host and Device stacks, CANopenRT CAN stack; SEGGER emUSB Device stack; and RTA Automation DeviceNet.

For detailed information on the features of each Stellaris family member, see www.luminarymicro.com/product_selector_guide

Stellaris Features the Cortex-M3 Core

The ARM Cortex-M3 processor, the microcontroller member of the ARM Cortex processor family, is at the heart of all Stellaris microcontrollers. Designed for serious microcontroller applications, the Cortex-M3 core features highly deterministic, fast interrupt processing – as low as six cycles and never more than twelve cycles. At the heart of the Cortex-M3 processor is an advanced 3-stage pipeline core, based on the Harvard architecture, incorporating features such as branch speculation, single cycle multiply and hardware divide to deliver exceptional performance. Cortex-M3 implements the new Thumb-2 mixed 16-/32-bit instruction set architecture without mode switching, helping it to be 70 percent more efficient per MHz than an ARM7TDMI-S processor executing Thumb instructions, and 35 percent more efficient than the ARM7TDMI-S processor executing ARM instructions, for the Dhrystone benchmark.

Pricing and Availability

Nineteen of the new Stellaris MCUs are immediately available through Luminary Micro’s global sales channel (www.LuminaryMicro.com/sales) and online (www.LuminaryMicro.com/products/) starting at a suggested price of USD 2.79 (10K quantity), along with the Stellaris LM3S3748 USB Host+Device Evaluation Kit (USD 109). The eleven new Stellaris MCUs with USB OTG capability and the Stellaris LM3S3768 USB On-the-Go Evaluation Kit will be available in Q3’08.