27 July 2009

Atmel Debuts First of Series of 400 Mhz ARM926 Embedded MPUs

Atmel Corporation, a member of the ARM Connected Community has announced the release of the SAM9G45, the first member of a series of 400 MHz ARM926 embedded MPUs.

The series supports second generation Dual Data Rate DRAM (DDR2)   and are optimized for industrial applications such as building automation, data loggers, POS terminals, alarm systems and medical equipment, Atmel said. Peripherals include ECHI-compliant high-speed USB with on-chip PHy, dual EBI, 10/100 Ethernet MAC, LCD and Touchscreen controller, programmable 1.8 or 3.3 V I/O supply voltage, and a high data bandwidth architecture.

“The vast majority of ARM9-based embedded MPUs support only SDRAM memories. The problem is that memory availability is driven by the high-volume PC market and SDRAM is basically obsolete for current generation PCs. DDR2 and DDR3 offer higher memory densities, higher performance, lower cost and lower power consumption than SDRAM. That’s where the market is going. In response to the current economic crisis, many memory vendors are literally shutting down their SDRAM fabs. We expect the supply of SDRAM supply dwindle in the foreseeable future. This poses a problem for our customers, explained Jacko Wilbrink, Atmel’s director of ARM products explained,.

“While the minimum external bus of 300 MHz required for DDR3 is far too high for the majority of embedded MPUs - DDR2 is a good option for designers.  We believe that DDR2 is predestined to become the memory of choice for the industrial embedded market, which is why Atmel is aggressively integrating DDR2 support in its ARM9-based MPUs. Our customers now can migrate their next designs from SDRAM to DDR2, with the AT91SAM9G45 and additional forthcoming DDR2-enabled MPUs,” added Wilbrink.

With a processor clock running at 400 MHz, twin parallel External Bus Interfaces (EBI) supporting Dual Data Rate DRAM (DDR2) at 133 MHz and integrating High Speed (480 Mbps) EHCI compliant USB Host and Device Ports with on-chip transceivers, Ethernet MAC, as well as two interfaces for MMC 4.3 and SDIO/SDCard 2.0, together with an LCD controller with resistive touch screen interface CMOS camera and audio, the SAM9G45 is an ideal platform for embedded applications, that demand high-bandwidth communications, high-density data storage and modern graphical user interfaces, the company said.

The 12-layer system bus matrix is linked to the Memory Management Unit of the processor core, as well as 8 central DMA channels, 6 high-speed DMAs each dedicated to the video decoder, LCD controller, USB host and device, Ethernet MAC, and image sensor Interface, 21 Peripheral DMA (PDC) channels, dual EBI and small blocks of on chip distributed SRAM to ensure uninterrupted internal and external data flows with minimum processor overhead. The high data speedway architecture enables the SAM9G45 to perform 100Mpbs+ data transfers, user interface rendering in parallel with computationally intensive data processing.

At 400 MHz and a 1.0V core supply, typical power consumption is less than 300 uW/MHz. In backup mode with the RTC and a timer running plus four 32-bit registers, the SAM9G45 consumes around 8 uA, according to the company.

Samples of the SAM9G45 are available now. Production is scheduled for fourth quarter, Atmel said.