Atmel has released SAM9G45, the first member of a series of 400MHz ARM926 embedded MPUs that support second generation Dual Data Rate DRAM (DDR2) and are optimised for industrial applications such as building automation, data loggers, POS terminals, alarm systems and medical equipment.
Peripherals reportedly include EHCI-compliant high-speed USB with on-chip PHy, dual EBI, 10/100 Ethernet MAC, LCD and touchscreen controller, programmable 1.8 or 3.3 V I/O supply voltage, and a high data bandwidth architecture.
According to the company, the new offering delivers integrated power management, slew rate control I/Os with programmable 1.8 or 3.3V voltage levels, in a 0.8mm ball pitch package to simplify industrial control design and reduce cost.
Jacko Wilbrink, director of ARM products at Atmel, said: The vast majority of ARM9-based embedded MPUs support only SDRAM memories. The problem is that memory availability is driven by the high-volume PC market and SDRAM is basically obsolete for current generation PCs.
“DDR2 and DDR3 offer higher memory densities, higher performance, lower cost and lower power consumption than SDRAM. That’s where the market is going. In response to the current economic crisis, many memory vendors are literally shutting down their SDRAM fabs. We expect the supply of SDRAM to dwindle in the foreseeable future. This poses a problem for our customers.
Wilbrink added: While the minimum external bus of 300 MHz required for DDR3 is far too high for the majority of embedded MPUs, DDR2 is a good option for designers. We believe that DDR2 is predestined to become the memory of choice for the industrial embedded market, which is why Atmel is aggressively integrating DDR2 support in its ARM9-based MPUs. Our customers now can migrate their next designs from SDRAM to DDR2, with the AT91SAM9G45 and additional forthcoming DDR2-enabled MPUs.
The company said the 480Mbps USB on AT91SAM9G45 facilitates handling large amounts of data and interconnection both between systems and between the printed circuit boards (PCBs) inside a system.
