NXP Semiconductors claims its latest 100MHz microcontroller is the fastest MCU based on the ARM Cortex-M3 processor.

Typically, Cortex-M3 microcontrollers from leading suppliers STMicroelectronics and Luminary Micro run at or below 50MHz, although ST also has a 72MHz device.   

NXP first licensed the ARM Cortex-M3 in February this year. This chip is based on revision 2 of the Cortex-M3 core, which includes power control with a wake-up interrupt controller that is intended to make entry into and exit from low power sleep states more efficient.

“LPC1700 is the fastest Cortex-M3 microcontrollers available, and has been designed for customers requiring simultaneous high bandwidth data streams from Ethernet, USB and CAN,” said Geoff Lees, v-p and general manager, microcontroller product line, NXP Semiconductors.

Features include support for communication peripherals including 10/100 Ethernet, USB On-The-Go/Host/Device and two CAN interfaces, all of which can operate simultaneously and without bus contention.

On-chip there is a true 12-bit analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) and a 10-bit digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) as well as the faster (1Mbit/s) I²C bus, four UARTs, three SPI/SSP buses and an I²S bus.

The MCU is pin-to-pin compatible with the ARM7-based LPC2300 microcontroller series. 

Development support includes tools form Keil, IAR Systems, Hitex Development Tools and Embedded Artists. Code Red Technologies will offer support for the LPC1700 in their Eclipse-based Red Suite software development platform.

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