Cortex-M3-based MCUs major on motion control

Five new Stellaris microcontrollers and corresponding development kits offer increased functionality for sophisticated motion-oriented applications.

Luminary Micro, a fabless semiconductor company that designs, markets, and sells award-winning ARM Cortex-M3 processor-based microcontrollers and was the first to bring ARM processor-based MCUs for US $1.00 to embedded developers, announced today the availability of five new Stellaris microcontrollers (MCUs) and corresponding development kits.

The new MCUs and development kits are available in Luminary Micro's global sales channel immediately and offer powerful features designed for motion control applications, with several application examples being displayed at Luminary Micro's booth (10-520) at Embedded World in Nuremberg.

The Stellaris line of MCUs, which won four awards in 2006, brings high-performance 32bit computing to cost-sensitive embedded microcontroller applications at a cost equivalent to or better than legacy 8 and 16bit devices.

All Stellaris MCUs are targeted at embedded and industrial applications, such as: building and home automation; factory automation; motion control; and industrial power control devices.

The new parts offer increased functionality for sophisticated motion-oriented applications such as those found in HVAC systems, industrial conveyer systems, liquid pumps, printers, robots, and CNC and other milling machines.

The associated feature-rich development kits include evaluation tool suites, demonstration RTOSs, example programs and everything a developer needs to get up and running in 10 minutes or less, for a total "out-of-the-box" experience.

"The deterministic real-time capability of the Cortex-M3 core is one of the significant differentiations of this family that make it ideal for deeply embedded applications", said Chief Marketing Officer Jean Anne Booth.

"Our high-resolution glitchless PWM waveform generators offer meticulous performance even with the exacting demands of high-performance motion control".

Luminary Micro now has 24 Stellaris MCUs available in global distribution, less than one year after the company announced it was selected as ARM's lead partner for Cortex-M3 development.

The company has customer design wins across the Stellaris family, including the new devices announced today.

"Our customers have told us that software and tool support is key in time to market and designs won or lost", said Booth.

"With the extensive ARM ecosystem of tools, software, and support, embedded designers can enter the ARM family with Stellaris microcontrollers and conceivably never have to upgrade architectures or change tools again".

Stellaris family MCUs are based on the ARM Cortex-M3 processor, the microcontroller member of the ARM Cortex processor family.

Designed for serious microcontroller applications, the Stellaris family provides entry into the industry's strongest ecosystem, with code compatibility ranging from $1 to 1GHz.

Additional advantages include: easy and cost-effective to upgrade from 8 and 16bit applications, requiring less Flash code space and delivering a 10x improvement in performance over 8051 cores and an 8x improvement in performance over PIC24F cores; extended ARM7 family processor capabilities in critical MCU applications with a 4x improvement in control processing performance, real-time interrupt response capability and predictable deterministic interrupt behaviour, while requiring just half the Flash (code space) of ARM7 control applications; greater than 50MIPS with a demonstrable 20x performance roadmap in the Cortex processor family, allowing for a "no-worry" migration path; and best-in-industry development environment and debug tools.

The five new Stellaris family members have been optimised to support the complex algorithms necessary for efficient energy-saving motion control applications.

The LM3S618 and LM3S818 are particularly well-suited for controlling a wide range of variable speed three-phase and single-phase AC Induction motor control using space-vector or sine-wave modulation.

The LM3S317, LM3S617 and LM3S817 are optimised to control a wide range of stepper motors.

Until now, stepper motor system designers have had to choose between a basic unipolar control method, giving up both high torque and high step rate capability, or a dedicated control chip that lacks extensible intelligence.

Using the LM3S317/LM3S617/LM3S817 devices for stepper motor system control provides the system designer with the headroom for high-performance chopper control in order to operate a stepper motor at both high torque and high step rates.

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