NXP ships world's fastest ARM Cortex-M4, Cortex-M3 mcus

According to NXP, the LPC4300 is the industry's first asymmetrical dual core dsc with a Cortex-M0 co processor. The mixed signal specialist has also announced that it has increased the performance of its LPC1800 series to 180MHz, extending its lead as the world's fastest Cortex-M3 based microcontroller. Designed in parallel, both devices have been manufactured using the same 90nm technology and are pin and software compatible. The performance of the LPC4300 series makes it suitable for applications such as embedded audio, high end motor control, industrial automation, point of sale, medical devices and automotive accessories. NXP says the LPC4300 has a unique asymmetrical dual core architecture, featuring two ARM processors – a Cortex-M4 core, optimised for real time processing and a Cortex-M0 core, optimised for real time control. The small gate count Cortex-M0 has been added to offload many of the control and I/O handling duties that drain the bandwidth of the Cortex-M4 core. Both cores are capable of running at 204MHz. Gordon Cooper, NXP's product marketing manager, microcontroller business line, said: "The LPC4300 is not just another Cortex-M4. It has proven to be a great match for customers that require high performance microcontroller and dsp capabilities. We're providing embedded engineers with a seamless upward migration path from LPC1800 to LPC4300 by adding dsp and floating point math." The first LPC4300 part available is the LPC4350 in a BGA256 package – a Flashless part with 264KB SRAM. Flash parts will be available in Q1 2012.