Cortex-M0 MCU Challenges 8- And 16-Bit Micros Across The Board

Feb. 3, 2010

NXP’s LPC1100 line based on ARM’s Cortex-M0 32-bit architecture targets applications normally left to 8- and 16-bit platforms.

William G. Wong

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LPC1111 Cortex M0 DIP prototype module

NXP’s LPC1100 line is based on ARM’s Cortex-M0 32-bit architecture, which offers five to 10 times the performance of 8- and 16-bit processors while delivering a 30% to 50% reduction in code size. It targets low-power applications. The LPC1111FHN33/101 has 8 kbytes of flash and 2 kbytes of RAM, and it comes in a 33-pin quad flat no-lead (QFN) package. Versions with up to 32 kbytes are available. Peripherals include a UART, I2C port, synchronous serial port (SSP), and eight-channel analog-to-digital converter (ADC). Pricing starts at $0.65. The chips are pin-compatible with the higher-performance 72-MHz LPC1300, which is based on the Cortex-M3 core. A line of USB-based, dual-inline package (DIP) prototype modules supporting the range of Cortex chips is available to developers (see the figure).

NXP

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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