NXP Launches Industry's First Cortex-M0 MCU with Integrated Segment LCD Driver

- Providing high-contrast LCD displays at reasonable prices ∙∙∙ Integrated applications in industrial automation, lighting, home electronics, etc.

September 28, 2011, Seoul — NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ: NXPI) today launched the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 series microcontrollers, which feature the industry's first integrated segment LCD driver on ARM® Cortex™-M0 microcontrollers. This enables high contrast and high brightness on a single chip. Equipped with NXP's PCF8576D LCD driver, the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 can drive any static or multiplexed LCD with up to four backplanes and 40 segments, and can easily be connected to a multi-segment LCD driver capable of holding up to 2,560 segments for larger display applications.

With the launch of the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00, NXP can integrate LCDs into a wide range of applications such as industrial automation, home appliances, lighting, home electronics, and portable medical devices, and reduce overall system costs by up to 15%. NXP is showcasing its new display microcontrollers at the ESC (Embedded Systems Conference, Booth 800) currently being held in Boston, USA.

Jean-Jap Besmer, Marketing Director for NXP’s Microcontroller Product Line, said, “Our Cortex-M0 microcontrollers have enjoyed significant popularity as replacements for 8-bit and 16-bit MCUs in home appliance and industrial applications. “System designers have hoped to be able to drive high-quality, high-definition segment LCD displays without the need for two chips or being trapped in legacy MCU architectures, and we are now providing a convenient Cortex-M0 solution for them,” the company stated. “The LPC11D and LPC12D series provide cost-effective basic options for the Cortex-M LCD portfolio, which includes Cortex-M3-based graphic LCD controllers capable of driving TFT and STN displays. NXP’s LCD portfolio includes Cortex-M3-based graphic LCD controllers capable of driving TFT and STN displays. These newly released products reinforce the rich range of options made possible through the collaboration between NXP and ARM.”

In contrast to current general-purpose segment LCD drivers, the NXP PCF8576D LCD driver exhibits high stability and supports a wide LCD supply range between 2.5 V and 6.5 V, making it an ideal choice for interfacing the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 with both high-threshold and low-threshold LCDs. The integrated PCF8576D enhances system reliability and quality while reducing electrical interconnect and compatibility issues, and includes key features such as on-chip display RAM and versatile blinking modes.

In addition to making the entire display blink, the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 also support AC messages appearing on arbitrarily selected LCD elements at a settable (changeable) blink frequency. Display data sent from the microcontroller is stored in 40 x 4-bit on-chip display RAM that supports direct mapping to the LCD elements displayed on the display. In addition, since these characteristics are maintained even in low-power mode, the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 are considered competitive solutions for low-power 8/16-bit applications requiring low-cost segment LCD integration.

The LPC11D00 supports up to 32KB Flash and 8KB SRAM, and includes a rich set of peripherals such as two SSPs, I2C (FM+), UART, four system timers, and an 8-channel high-precision 10-bit ADC. As an extension of the energy-efficient LPC 1100L family, the LPC11D00 also implements differentiated API-driven power profiles, providing users with ready-to-use power management templates and enabling designers to achieve runtime optimization, efficiency, and dynamic power consumption through simple API calls.

The LPC12D00 expands on the feature set of the LPC11D00 and features up to 128KB of flash and innovative analog peripherals such as 32 levels of voltage reference and dual analog voltage comparators with edge and level detection and output feedback loops. As a newly upgraded version of the LPC1200 industrial control series, the LPC12D00 is a highly stable solution for industrial automation and white goods applications where safety is paramount. The LPC1200 product family received a high immunity rating in the electrical fast transient (EFT) test conducted by Langer EMV-Technik GmbH in accordance with the IEC 61697-1 recommendations and received IEC 60730 Class B certification.

LPC11D00 Key Features
NXP’s LPC11D00 display microcontroller is the latest version of the ultra-low power Cortex-M0 microcontroller LPC1100L and offers the following features.

• Up to 50 MHz speed on LPC1100L
• 32 vector interrupts; 4 priority levels; dedicated interrupts for up to 13 GPIOs
• Serial Peripherals: UART, 1-2 SSP, I2C (FM+)
• Two 16-bit and two 32-bit timers with PWM/Match/Capture functions
• 12 MHz internal RC oscillator with 1% accuracy for heat and voltage
• Power-On-Reset (POR); Multi-level BOD (Brown-Out-Detect); Phase-Locked Loop (PLL)
• 8-channel high-precision 10-bit ADC including ±1LSB DNL
The LPC11D00 series combines these various functions with the ARM Cortex-M0 v6-M 16-bit Thumb instruction set, enabling code density to be increased by up to 50% compared to 8/16-bit microcontrollers used for general tasks.

LPC12D00 Key Features
NXP's LPC12D00 display microcontroller is an extension of the very powerful LPC1200 industrial control series. It also includes up to 55 GPIOs and multiple timer/serial channels to provide the accuracy required for baud rate generation, as well as onboard peripherals including an RTC, DMA, CRC, and an internal oscillator with 1% accuracy. Other features are as follows.

• Windowed watchdog timer with an independent internal oscillator source designed to comply with IEC 60370 Class B safety requirements for white goods
• Use programmable digital filters on all GPIO pins to improve signal integrity management for industrial applications
• An optimized ROM-based divide library for Cortex-M0 that not only provides the computational performance of a software-based library but also combines a reduced flash code size with highly deterministic cycle times
• Dual analog comparator with 32-step voltage reference, edge and level detection, and output feedback loop

Pricing and Availability
NXP's LPC11D14 and LPC12D27 microcontrollers are currently in the sampling phase, and 2011