New website devoted to 32 bit micro controllers.

Check it here: http://www.32bitmicro.com/

Q: What do you get when you combine NXP ARM7 bunch of LEDs and a building?

A: Simple, you get Big Binary Clock.

Students at theTechnical University of Wroclaw, Poland, came up with

the idea of using 18 round windows as display for the clock. The interesting

part is that they have used NXP's ARM7 chips with Bluetooh communication.

For more pictures check the picture gallery here, video and clock

simulation.

Cortex-M3 aka CM3 based MCUs are getting more and more popular
TI has just acuired LuminaryMicro with their entire portfolio of CM3 based micros.
TI Stellaris page link

STMicro has published introductory "STM32F10xxx Cortex-M3 programming manual" click on the link to access PDF document. 

 NXP has "Introduction to NXP's new LPC1700 Cortex-M3 Microcontroller" webinar and offers free LPC1766
samples on this page http://response.nxp.com/forms/experience_mcuoptions 

NXP will be the first to release MCUs based on ARM 's newest core Cortex-M0.
ARM IQ magazine from March 2009  has number of good articles about CM0
and NXPs LPC1100 series 

IEEE Spectrum has an article titled "25 Microchips That Shook the World" . Their choices include
chips like NE555, TMC0281, 6502, TMS32010, PIC16C84, μA741, ICL8038, WD1402A, ARM1, KAF-1300,
IBM Deep Blue 2 Chess Chip, Intel 8088, Micronas MAS3507 MP3 decoder, Mostek MK4096 4K DRAM,
Xilinx XC2064, Zilog Z80, Sun SPARC, Tripath TA2020, Motorola MC68000,  C&T AT Chip. My personal
favorites are 555, 741, Z80 and ARM1. I had great time reading the artilcle,  brings back lots of good
memories.

Ember announced next-generation high performance, low power ZigBee SOC chip based on Cortex™-M3 core.
By replacing XAP2 core found in the current generation of chips Ember is going after more open architecure
for smart 802.15.4 based networks.  It will be interesing to see how this new chip compares to the Freescale's
ARM7TDMI based MC1322x.

Ember press relase 

NXP has posted a training video with overview of the LPC23xx and LPC24xx series. It is short about 30 minutes of introductory information but if you are new to the NXP chips the time is well spend watching it.

Couple of highlihts:
- discussion of the Flash memory including desing details, MAM accelaration and code protection CRP.
- discussion of on-chip busses including local bus dual AHB1, AHB2 and DMA
- new peripherals Ethernet, LCD, UDB OTG/OHCI, External Memory Interface

Particular attention in the presentation is being paid to performance enhacing features.

NXP web page with tranining video click-here. 

There is also a companion presentation in PDF format click-here.

Analog Devices ADuC7 series of ARM7 based analog microcontrollers has some unique features not offered by other manufacturers. Staying true to the name it offers great analog capabilities with precision analog I/O including 12 bit ADC and D/A in ADuC702x chips or 16 bit ADC in AduC703x with PGA (Programmable Gain Amplifier). But these chips also come with very unique peripherals like Programmable Logic Array (PLA), Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS) or ability to run directly off a high voltage of up to 16V for ADuC703x chips. In addition they come in some of the smallest packages for ARM based microcontrollers. 

ADuC7 web page click-here 

Freescale has released fully integrated MC1322x ARM7 based Platform in a Package (PiP) RF transceiver for 802.15.4 wireless networks. MC1322x  has 128KB Flash, 96KB RAM, 80 KB ROM plus GPIO,ADC,UART,I2C,SPI and even keyboard interface click-here for more info. Looks like a very good solution for 802.15.4 based networks including ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, HART and ISA100+.

First poducts based on MC1322x are already showing up, for example this FreeStar Pro radio module from CEL.

HP has released HP20B calculator w embedded Atmel AT91SAM7L128 MCU.
The suggested retail price is only $39.99 and we will be keeping an eye on it!
Link to the HP20B page click here.

Atmel has just announced licensing Cortex-M3 core for the upcoming AT91SAM3 Flash MCU Family.
New family should be available in Q4 2008.

Press release link click here