Date:27th Mar 2012

New controller chips from Freescale for real time control

http://www.eeherald.com/section/new-products/nps201203272.html

Freescale Semiconductor has announced its new portfolio of Vybrid controller solutions for applications including building/home automation and control; industrial automation; point-of-sale systems; medical devices, such as patient monitors; smart energy equipment, including energy meters and data concentrators; and appliances. They are also said to be well-suited for many low-power and timing-critical wired and wireless network communication protocols, such as IEEE 1588, Smart Energy 2.0, low-power WiFi, Bluetooth Low Energy and power line communication, and other proprietary interfaces.

"We’ve built our new Vybrid controller solutions to address the enormous challenge of adding advanced user interfaces to applications that traditionally have been focused on real-time control," said Reza Kazerounian, senior vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Automotive, Industrial & Multi-Market Solutions Group. "With the Vybrid platform, Freescale is going beyond silicon to provide a full software-hardware solution, making it easier and faster for our customers to develop systems that need rich apps in real time."

"Asymmetrical multicore systems are well suited to embedded applications that need real-time control and intuitive user interfaces," said Tom R. Halfhill, a senior analyst at The Linley Group and senior editor of Microprocessor Report. "Some example applications are factory automation, medical devices and home appliances. Freescale’s Vybrid controller solutions are a new twist on ARM’s Big.Little strategy. They integrate a Cortex-A5 applications core with a Cortex-M4 microcontroller core and add features for real-time control, communications and user interfaces. A virtual hardware model speeds up software development, which is increasingly the most time-consuming part of a design project. Vybrid devices can reduce the product’s bill of materials and design cycle."

VF series features includes:

· Up to 1.5 MB on-chip SRAM with error correction code (ECC)

· DDR3/LPDDR2 controller with ECC

· Dual quad-SPI with double-data-rate capability and execute-in-place (XIP)

· NAND flash controller with ECC

· Dual Ethernet controllers with level 2 (L2) switch

· Dual USB 2.0 OTG with integrated high-speed PHY

· Dual display controllers with video/camera interface

· Real-time I/O subsystem, including pulse-width modulation (PWM), dual analog-to-digital converters (ADC) and dual digital-to-analog converters (DACs)

· OpenVG graphics processing unit (GPU)

· Multiple audio interfaces

· Secure boot with cryptography algorithm acceleration and tamper detection

"Freescale’s Vybrid controller solutions are well-suited to address the challenge of software diversity and complexity in embedded applications," said David Kleidermacher, chief technology officer for Green Hills Software. "The combination of Green Hills’ scalable INTEGRITY RTOS family, Multivisor secure virtualization, TimeMachine trace debugging and optimizing compilers makes it easier for embedded developers to manage this complexity while building ever more capable electronic products."

Availability:

Alpha samples of the first devices in the Vybrid VF series are planned for Q2 2012.

Broad availability of samples and tools is planned for Q3 from Freescale and its distribution partners.

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