Cortus, MagnaChip and Taegee to create 32bit ASMCU IP for touch screen apps

MONTPELLIER, FRANCE: Cortus S.A., MagnaChip Semiconductor Corp. and Taegee Co. Ltd have collaborated to develop an advanced, low power, 32bit microprocessor based ASMCU (Application Specific Microcontroller) and associated IP for use in products such as tablet computers, smart phones, laptops and other widely-used touch screen applications.

Cortus S.A. designs and licenses highly efficient 32-bit processor cores and IP that enhance accurate and reliable touch gesture recognition while also extending battery life. This 32-bit microprocessor technology is ported to Magnachip’s 0.18um EEPROM technology using Taegee’s semiconductor and system design expertise. The jointly developed ASMCU will be manufactured by MagnaChip’s Semiconductor Manufacturing Services.

Mike Chapman, president and CEO of Cortus S.A., said: “We are delighted that this collaboration is quickly showing excellent results. The ASMCU developed for touch screen controllers is an excellent example of the products that will come out of this partnership. Our APS3 processor core is ideal for these applications with its low power, high performance and small core size.”

“The Cortus APS3 was a perfect fit for our design requirements," said Channy Lee, president and CEO of Taegee. "The comprehensive training and simple interfaces provided by Cortus ensured very rapid integration helping us keep ahead of our aggressive schedules. The small silicon footprint and low power consumption features enabled us to meet our design goals and while providing the required processor performance. The APS3 will be a key feature in many of our future ASMCU designs.”

TJ Lee, senior VP and GM, Corporate Engineering and SMS Engineering of MagnaChip Semiconductor, commented: “We are very pleased to provide our 0.18um EEPROM technology as part of the Cortus and Taegee team. This type of partnership helps MagnaChip better meet the increasing demand of our customers.”

The Cortus APS3 is a high performance 32-bit processor designed specifically for embedded systems. It features a tiny silicon footprint (the same size as an 8051), very low power consumption, high code density and high performance (up to 1.67 DMIPS/MHz). A full development environment is available, which can be customised and branded for customer use.

The ecosystem around the APS3 is rich and well developed, it includes a full development environment (for C and C++), peripherals typical of embedded systems, bus bridges to ensure easy interfacing to other IP and system support and functions such as cache and memory management units. For the most demanding designs, the APS3 can be used in a multi-core configuration. The APS3 processor core is currently in production in a range of products from security applications to ultra low power RF designs.