Cypress’s PSoC® 4 Architecture Delivers the Industry’s Most-Flexible, Lowest-Power ARM® Cortex™-M0-Based Devices for Embedded Designs
Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: CY) today unveiled the PSoC®
4 programmable system-on-chip architecture, which combines Cypress’s
best-in-class PSoC analog and digital fabric and industry-leading
CapSense® capacitive touch technology with ARM®’s
power-efficient Cortex™-M0 core. The truly scalable, cost-efficient
architecture delivers PSoC’s trademark flexibility, analog performance
and integration, along with access to dozens of free PSoC
Components™—“virtual chips” represented by icons in Cypress’s PSoC
Creator™ integrated design environment. The new PSoC 4 device class will
challenge proprietary 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), along
with other 32-bit devices. Cypress plans to announce the availability of
new PSoC 4 families in the first half of 2013.
The PSoC 4 architecture enhances Cypress’s patented, industry-leading
CapSense capacitive-touch sensing technology by offering significant
leadership in noise immunity. In addition to capacitive sensing, PSoC 4
targets field-oriented control (FOC) motor control, temperature sensing,
security access, portable medical, and many other applications. For more
information, visit www.cypress.com/go/psoc4.
“PSoC 4 enables design engineers to leverage the overall trend toward
industry-standard, lower-cost ARM-based solutions, the broad
availability of ARM software, and the migration of 8-and 16-bit MCU
applications to 32-bit solutions,” said John Weil, Senior Director of
PSoC Marketing for Cypress’s Programmable Systems Division. “It is the
industry’s only fully scalable, infinitely reconfigurable Cortex-M-class
MCU with best-in-class analog integration. It can replace entire
portfolios of proprietary MCUs and analog solutions, and it is
well-positioned to capture significant market share.”
"Inserting the popular Cortex-M0 processor core into the
highly-customizable logic and analog circuitry of Cypress's PSoC
products makes a very appealing combination for applications with unique
I/O requirements that warrant a higher performance processor or the
widely-used ARM architecture,” said Tom Starnes, Principal Analyst with
semiconductor market research firm Objective Analysis. “The trim PSoC 4
with the highly optimized Cortex-M0 processor makes it easier to step up
from 8- and 16-bit or proprietary MCU architectures."
The PSoC 4 architecture offers best-in-class power leakage of 150 nA
while retaining SRAM memory, programmable logic, and the ability to wake
up from an interrupt. In stop mode, it consumes only 20 nA while
maintaining wake-up capability. It has the widest operating voltage
range of any Cortex-M0-based device, enabling full analog and digital
operation from 1.71V to 5.5V. The architecture facilitates integrated,
high-performance custom signal chains and provides both configurable
analog and flexible routing.
PSoC 4 leverages the PSoC Creator integrated design environment. The
IDE’s easy-to-use graphical interface enables designers to drag and drop
pre-characterized, production-ready analog and digital IP blocks—PSoC
Components—into a single PSoC device to create customized, feature-rich,
and highly differentiated end products. Cypress’s platform solution—PSoC
4, PSoC Creator and PSoC Components—simplifies and accelerates the
design process, reduces bills of material, and provides extraordinary
system value.
MCUs Can’t. PSoC Can.
PSoC solutions bring the flash-based equivalent of a field-programmable
ASIC to embedded designs without lead-time or NRE penalties. PSoC
integrates configurable analog and digital circuits with an on-chip
microcontroller, reducing component count and simplifying revisions. A
single PSoC device can integrate as many as 100 peripheral functions,
accelerating cycle time and improving quality while reducing board
space, power consumption, and system cost.
PSoC “future-proofs” designs, protecting them against last-minute
specifications changes. It enables firmware-based changes at any point
in the design cycle—even out in the field. All PSoC devices are
dynamically reconfigurable, enabling designers to transform resources
on-the-fly and to execute tasks with fewer ICs. For more information,
please visit www.cypress.com/psoc.
Free online training is available at www.cypress.com/psoctraining.
About Cypress
Cypress delivers high-performance, mixed-signal, programmable solutions
that provide customers with rapid time-to-market and exceptional system
value. Cypress offerings include the flagship PSoC programmable
system-on-chip families and derivatives, CapSense touch sensing and
TrueTouch® solutions for touchscreens. Cypress is the world
leader in USB controllers, including the high-performance West Bridge®
solution that enhances connectivity and performance in multimedia
handsets, PCs and tablets. Cypress is also the world leader in SRAM
memories. Cypress serves numerous markets including consumer, mobile
handsets, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial and
military. Cypress trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the
ticker symbol CY. Visit Cypress online at www.cypress.com.
Cypress, the Cypress logo, PSoC, CapSense, TrueTouch, and West Bridge
are registered trademarks and PSoC Components and PSoC Creator are
trademarks of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. All other trademarks are
property of their owners.
