Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Scalable Sitara ARM9 MPUs from TI deliver mix of integrated connectivity options for industrial and highly-connected designs

DALLAS, USA: Developers of embedded industrial, medical and consumer designs demand flexible architectures to support multiple industry-specific peripherals and interfaces.

To address the evolving needs of these market spaces, Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) has announced four new Sitara ARM9 microprocessors (MPUs) and corresponding evaluation modules (EVMs) packed with a plethora of integrated connectivity options.

Unlike other ARM9 offerings, TI's AM1808, AM1806, AM1707, and AM1705 MPUs integrate notable interfaces such as a serial ATA (SATA), universal parallel port (uPP) and TI's unique Programmable Real-time Unit (PRU).

The PRU offers flexible and configurable I/O control enabling developers to extend peripheral capabilities and add custom interfaces to their designs. The hardware and software scalability of the AM1x devices are coupled with a suite of software, demos and development tools to reduce customers' time to market.

AM1x key features and benefits:
* 375 and 450 MHz ARM9 options.
* Unique PRU enhances system flexibility and offers full user configurability when desired.
* Extend system peripheral needs with the ability to implement and tune standard, custom and "lite" versions of common and proprietary serial interfaces, such as UART and CAN.
* Achieve maximum efficiency since the PRU offloads the ARM9 to improve application processing capacity, reduce overall power consumption, eliminate latency and improve real-time responsiveness.
* Unique peripheral mix includes SATA, uPP, USB 2.0 on-the-go (OTG) with integrated PHY, USB 1.1 with integrated PHY, 10/100 Ethernet MAC, MMC/SD and more for smooth implementation of data, network, device and sensor communications.
* Pin-to-pin compatibility with TI's OMAP-L1x processors protect customers' code investment with the capability to scale up to the OMAP-L1x to integrate real-time data, video and audio processing capabilities or for OMAP-L1x developers to scale down to the AM1x to create cost-effective, entry-level products.
* Scale performance and power efficiency, utilize numerous peripherals and drive down system cost across product lines while leveraging existing hardware and software investments with TI's Sitara product family.
* With TI's Sitara family, developers can confidently turn their design concepts into leading innovations for a myriad of end-equipments, including industrial and home automation, point-of-service, portable data terminals and educational consoles.

Tools and software
Customers can rapidly develop and deploy their designs with the new TMDXEXP1808L experimenter kit for $445, the TMDXEVM1808L EVM for $1150 and TMDXEM1707 EVM for $845. The software development kit includes a Linux kernel 2.6.33 board support package, PRU configuration tool as well as PRU CAN, PRU UART and touch screen demos. Windows Embedded CE and additional operating system support will be available later in the year.

The AM1x MPUs are sampling with prices starting at USD $6.55 in quantities of 1,000 units.

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