NXP Semiconductors today announced its LPC11U00 series, an ARM Cortex-M0 based microcontroller featuring a new USB architecture as well as a smart card interface. Equipped with a Full Speed USB 2.0 device controller and carrying a sub-dollar price point, the LPC11U00 is targeted at consumer electronics and mobile devices.
According to NXP the LPC11U00 provides up to 10 configurable physical endpoints with flexible user defined buffer architecture management, faster post-processing of USB data, and robust asynchronous USB operation. In contrast to typical USB implementations, endpoint buffers in the LPC11U00 do not reside within the USB domain but reside in system SRAM space, giving the CPU direct access to USB packets. Unused endpoint buffer space is not wasted and can be fully utilized by reallocating it as system SRAM. This feature is especially suited for protocol converters such as UART-to-USB and SPI-to-USB bridges where data needs to be quickly transferred between serial interfaces.
With the LPC11U00 USB architecture, each non-control endpoint can be configured for either bulk, interrupt or isochronous, and can be double-buffered with maximum packet sizes of 1023 bytes. Further, the flexible clocking architecture supported by a dedicated USB PLL enables asynchronous USB operation, with the CPU and USB operating independently at maximum speeds.
Connectivity options on the LPC11U00 series include two Synchronous Serial Port (SSP) interfaces, I2C with Fast-mode Plus feature with 10x higher bus-drive capability, a Universal Synchronous-Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (USART), and a Smart Card interface. The Smart Card interface (ISO7816-3) provides a plug-and-play interface for smart cards, making the LPC11U00 a suitable fit for e-commerce applications.
The LPC11U00 series offers three devices: LPC11U12 (16K Flash), LPC11U13 (24K Flash) and LPC11U14 (32K Flash). These devices are currently sampling and will be available worldwide in May 2011. Additional family members offering higher memory and package configurations will be available in the second half of the year, according to the company.