Freescale Kinetis MCU

KINETIS - Meeting the Needs of the Embedded Designer

Wide Selection of Scalable MCUs from One Supplier

The first phase of the Kinetis MCU portfolio contains five compatible MCU families with over 200 individual devices. Five performance options are available from 50 to 180 MHz with flash memory ranging from 32 KB to 1 MB and high RAM-to-flash ratios throughout. Common peripherals, memory maps and packages both within and across MCU families allow for easy migration to greater/less memory and functionality.

Mixed-Signal Capability for Signal Conditioning,Conversion and Analysis

Kinetis MCUs are rich in mixed-signal capability. Features include multiple high-speed, high-precision 16-bit ADCs, 12-bit ?ACs, high-speed comparators, and programmable gain amplifiers. With analog integration at this level typically requiring a multi-chip solution, Kinetis MCUs offer the added benefits of reduced system cost and integration effort.

Ultra-Low-Power Performance for Extended Battery Life

Kinetis MCUs feature the best in low-power innovation, including ten flexible low-power operating modes for power profile optimization, power and clock gating, back-biasing, 4?S wake up times, full memory and analog operation down to 1.71V and Stop and Run currents of <500 nA and <200 ?A/MHz respectively. A low-power RTC and low-leakage wakeup unit add further flexibility, while a lowpower timer enables continual system operation in reduced power states.

FlexMemory: Fast, Flexible, High-Endurance On-Chip EEPROM

Freescale FlexMemory sets new standards for embedded memory and can be configured by the user as EEPROM and/or additional flash memory. When used as byte write/erasable EEPROM, FlexMemory is as easy and fast as SRAM and requires no user programming or erasing. The array size itself can be traded against its endurance to suit application requirements with figures of over 10M write/erase cycles possible. In comparison with traditional EEPROM solutions, FlexMemory offers a number of benefits, including greater endurance, faster write/erase times, lower voltage operation and user segmentation. Being on-chip also eliminates the costs associated with using external EEPROM ICs, the software headaches and the CPU/flash/RAM resource impact encountered with using EEPROM emulation schemes.

Fast, Robust Flash Memory

Freescale's 90nm thin-film storage (TFS) flash memory delivers industry-leading reliability and tolerance to charge loss, full operation down to 1.71V, significantly reduced run and standby currents and fast access times, resulting in reduced test and MCU costs. Excellent area efficiency at the die level permits rich on-chip feature integration across flash densities, while independent flash banks enable concurrent code execution and firmware updating without any performance degradation or complex coding routines.

One-Stop Enablement

Offering - MCU + IDE + RTOS Kinetis MCUs come with a complimentary full-featured MQX™ RTOS and bundled Eclipse-based CodeWarrior 10.0 Integrated Development Environment (IDE), including Processor Expert. A selection of connectivity, motor control,LCD and security stacks and drivers are also offered as well as a range of tools from IAR, KEIL and other ARM third-party vendors. Kinetis MCUs are supported by Freescale's Tower System, a rapid prototyping development platform that maximizes hardware reuse and speeds time to market.

Powerful Processing Capability

Kinetis MCUs feature the new ARM Cortex-M4 core. The ARM Cortex-M4 core retains all the advantages of the ARM Cortex-M3 core and adds a new digital signal processing capability in the form of DSP and single instruction multiple data (SIMD) extensions, a single cycle MAC and an optional single precision floating point unit. In addition, Freescale has added a direct memory access (DMA) controller, cross bar switch and optional on-chip cache memory which maximize bus bandwidth and flash execution performance, allowing CPU frequencies of up to 180 MHz.

Multiple Timers for Advanced Motor Control

Kinetis MCUs contain multiple FlexTimer modules for a wide range of control applications, including motor control with hardware dead-time insertion and quadrature decoding. A carrier modulator timer for generating infrared waveforms for remote control applications is standard on all devices.

Connectivity and Communication Interfaces

Kinetis MCUs feature a number of connectivity peripherals, including USB 2.0 (full- and high-speed) device/host/ On-The-Go with device charger detect capability, Ethernet with IEEE® 1588 hardware time stamping for real-time industrial control and a multitude of serial interfaces, including UARTs with support for ISO7816 SIM/smart cards and IrDA interfaces. An Inter-IC Sound (I2S) serial interface supports the integration of audio processing hardware, while dual CAN modules enable industrial network bridging.

Sophisticated Human-Machine Interfaces

Human-machine interface options start with a hardware touch-sensing interface (TSI). It provides a modern upgrade from mechanical to touch keypad, rotary and slider user interfaces and operates in all low-power modes. A flexible low-power segment LCD controller is offered on specific families with up to 512 KB flash and includes reduced power operation and segment failure detection capability. At the higher end of the portfolio a graphics LCD controller supports up to QVGA resolution in single-chip configuration, or up to SVGA resolution using external memory. In addition to the graphical user interface options, the DSP capability and I2S interface enable voice and audio user interface options.

Reliability, Safety and Security

Kinetis MCUs include a variety of data integrity and security hardware for safeguarding memory, communication and system data. A cyclic redundancy check module is available for validating memory contents and communication data, while a memory protection unit provides data protection and increased software reliability. For failsafe applications such as the safety standard for household appliances, an independently clocked watchdog offers protection against code runaway. When it comes to security, a hardware encryption unit supports several encryption and hashing algorithms for program validation as well as authentication and securing data for transfer and storage. The system security module included on high-end MCU families includes a unique chip identifier, secure key storage and a hardware tamper detection system. The tamper detection system has integrated sensors for voltage, frequency, temperature and external sensing for physical attack detection.

Support for External Peripherals and Memory

Kinetis MCUs can interface to a variety of external peripherals and memories for system expansion and data storage. A secure digital host controller supports SD, SDIO, MMC or CE-ATA cards for in-application software upgrades, media files, or adding Wi-Fi™ support. For interfacing to external peripherals such as graphics displays, a FlexBus external bus interface is provided. NAND flash and DRAM controllers allow the connection of a wide variety of memory types.