As user interfaces in vehicles and e-mobility devices become increasingly sophisticated, the semiconductor industry is expanding its range of components to support them. In line with this trend, Microchip has released the 'SAM9X75D5M,' a hybrid MCU designed to combine automotive display and control functions, and announced plans to target sectors requiring higher graphics processing and memory performance compared to MCU-centric designs.

Microchip announced on the 25th that it has launched a product to meet the growing demand for Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) for vehicles and e-mobility. The product features a System-in-Package (SiP) architecture integrating an Arm926EJ-S processor and 512Mbit DDR2 SDRAM into a single package and is AEC-Q100 Grade 2 certified. It supports displays up to 10 inches with a resolution of 1024×768.

The key feature of this product is that it enables designers familiar with the MCU development environment to utilize higher processing performance and memory capacity with relatively minimal changes. It supports development based on a real-time operating system (RTOS) while absorbing some MPU-level performance, which is interpreted as targeting the demand to boost performance as an extension of existing MCU designs. Application areas include digital cockpit clusters, smart clusters for two-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles, HVAC control, and electric vehicle chargers.

In terms of design, a key feature is the integration of the processor and memory into a single unit, which reduces PCB layout and wiring complexity. This design is intended to enhance responsiveness to the recurring fluctuations in memory supply and demand, as the burden of securing individual DRAM modules separately is alleviated. In particular, the focus was on integrating DDR2 memory directly into the package to reduce the risk associated with external memory procurement and ensure long-term supply stability.

The display and connectivity functions have also been configured to meet the demands of automotive HMI. It supports MIPI DSI, LVDS, and parallel RGB data interfaces to enable various display configurations, and is equipped with CAN FD, USB, and Gigabit Ethernet. Furthermore, it includes Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), 2D graphics, and audio functions, allowing it to perform roles expanded beyond those of a simple control MCU.

The development environment supports MPLAB X IDE and MPLAB Harmony, and development can be performed using FreeRTOS, Eclipse ThreadX, or bare metal. For graphics implementation, third-party tools such as Crank, LVGL, Altia, and Embedded Wizard can be utilized in addition to the Microchip Graphics Suite. Microchip also provides evaluation kits. The product is supplied at $9.12 per unit for a quantity of 5,000, and larger-capacity automotive memory integrated products are currently available as samples.