Freescale Semiconductor has introduced an ARM Cortex-M4 core based microcontroller (MCU) family, which the company says is designed for single-chip, graphics LCD applications.
The high-performance Kinetis K70 family targets applications that require a graphics LCD user interface, and advanced connectivity and security functionality, all without the increased cost and power consumption associated with multi-chip designs.
Kinetis K70 family enable graphics LCD displays with its integrated graphics LCD controller, 1 MB of flash memory and 128 KB of SRAM to drive LCD panels at 8-bit QVGA resolution without the cost and complexity of adding external programme and frame buffer memory.
In addition, K70 family provides the headroom to manage the performance demands of graphics processing, while simultaneously managing real-time control, communication and connectivity functions typically required by HMI applications.
With the support of Freescale’s PEG development suite, designers can create high-colour-depth, multi-layered GUIs that work tightly with an application’s real-time operating system and they can even move existing PEG applications from a different architecture to the Kinetis K70 family.
The 120/150 MHz MCUs gives a CPU performance up to 150MHz CPU speed and increased cache capabilities to improve computing throughput.
It features floating point unit that extends the range of data-acquisition-intensive applications like motor drive, audio processing and digital filtering by reducing computation time and increasing system accuracy.
In addition, the MCUs also features dedicated motor control peripherals, including multiple timers and fast 16-bit ADCs with fault control and programmable delay block support for driving stepper, BLDC, and PMAC motors with sensor or sensorless algorithms.
A high-speed USB host/device On-The-Go which supports 480 Mbps data transfer using an external ULPI transceiver is also a part of the new MCU.
Freescale Industrial and Multi-Market MCU business vice-president Geoff Lees said the K70 is Freescale’s feature-rich Kinetis family, bringing a new level of performance, memory and integration to a portfolio already full of design options.
"Graphics LCD capability was the logical next step in the evolution of the Kinetis feature set. It allows developers to add attractive, multi-function user interfaces to their designs quickly and with minimal cost," said Lees.
