Atmel has introduced a AVR32 microcontroller with high speed communication. The AT32UC3A3 features Atmel's 91 DMIPS AVR32 CPU, and includes Hi-Speed USB interface with On-The-Go, a dual high speed SD/MMC card interface plus SDRAM and NAND flash interface with SLC and MLC, ECC.

It is targeted to the rapidly growing digital media systems and audio player docking station markets. The AT32UC3A3 also fits a wider range of embedded applications where fast transfer of large amounts of data is a requirement.

AT32UC3A3 features Atmel's peripheral DMA controller in combination with a multilayer databus. This offloads the CPU by automating the transmission of large packets of data.

In addition, to the dual port SRAM found in all AVR32 microcontrollers, the AT32UC3A3 introduces distributed SRAM architecture that eliminates latency and potential delay for data flowing through the controller.

The 128Kbytes of on-chip SRAM is split into three regions, each offering a separate memory interface to the memory and peripheral DMA controllers. This allows multiple hi-speed data transfers to run simultaneously.

The AVR32 offers a wide range of DSP instructions usually only found in high end CPUs and DSPs. Its high performance eliminates the need for custom audio decoder hardware, and it is capable of decoding a stereo MP3 stream at less than 25 MHz. With a maximum speed of up to 66 MHz, this means there is plenty of CPU performance left to handle "heavier" audio formats such as AAC.

The AVR32 microcontroller offers an integrated stereo 16-bit bitstream DAC. This requires only a small external power amplifier to generate the output voltages required for line, headphones or external speakers. Playback in four channel audio or full surround sound requires an external audio codec, usually connected to the microcontroller's IIS interface.

Streaming a single digital audio track requires a bandwidth of 320 kbit/s or less. But the consumer demands much faster communication for fast synchronization of a large music library with cover art.

The AVR32 AT32UC3A3 offers multiple high speed communication interfaces, including a Hi-Speed USB interface with 480 Mbit/s, a NAND flash controller with support for Multi Level Cell error correction, and an MMC/SD port with support for up to two SD card slots with more than 12 Mbyte/s transfer speed.

Atmel's AVR32 microcontroller is a low power design, and the AT32UC3A3 consumes less than 2.0mW/MHz in active mode. This allows the AVR32 microcontroller to deliver more than 150 hours of audio playback from two AA batteries.

ATEVK1104 reference design - digital audio docking station

To demonstrate the digital audio capabilities of the AVR32 microcontrollers and reduce the time to market for potential customers, Atmel has designed the ATEVK1104 reference design.

The kit demonstrates playback from USB mass storage device, SD card or NAND flash, and shows how music can be downloaded or streamed from a PC through the Hi-Speed USB interface. Later this year, Atmel will introduce Bluetooth, and ZigBee radio connectivity add-on kits.

More than 100 million iPod and iPhone devices have been sold in the market, and consumer and automotive audio equipment manufacturers are adding iPod docking capability to their existing products. To registered Apple "Made for iPod" licensees, Atmel will provide an iPod docking extension kit to the ATEVK1104 and ATEVK1105. The extension kit contains the hardware, firmware and source code required to access and controls the iPod and iPhone via the USB port.

Availability and Pricing

Samples of the AT32UC3A3 are available now. The devices are priced at US$4.41 for 10k units.

The ATEVK1104 development kit is available now. The kit is priced for US$169.

More information:

AT32UC3A3 and ATEVK1104 product information: www.atmel.com/UC3A3 and www.atmel.com/EVK1104.

More information on AVR32: www.atmel.com/AVR32