NXP Announces LPC1100 ARM Cortex-M0 CAN Microcontrollers

28th April 2010

ES Admin

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NXP today introduced the first two devices, LPC11C12 and LPC11C14, in the LPC11C00 series featuring a Controller Area Network (CAN) 2.0B-compliant controller for industrial and embedded networking applications. CAN has long been considered one of the best choices for robust real-time communication, but price-prohibitive for low-cost embedded applications. With the introduction of the LPC11C00 series, NXP now provides a new low-cost entry point and total CAN solution reducing product development risk, lowering total system cost, and speeding time to market for high-performance embedded designs.

“With the addition of several low cost CAN device options, the LPC1100 family is continuing to expand into even more 8 and 16-bit application areas,” said Geoff Lees, vice president and general manager, microcontroller product line, NXP Semiconductors. “Offering CAN and CANopen protocol support directly on-chip greatly simplifies the plug-and-play integration process.”

Traditionally used primarily in automotive applications, the CAN bus is now one of the best choices for embedded networking applications which require communication across multiple embedded microcontrollers and CAN device nodes such as sensors and actuators. Some of today’s new market demands are embedded machine control applications such as home appliances, motor controllers and elevator systems, as well as energy and power controllers that increasingly need to communicate with each other. One recent example is a high-end coffee machine using microcontrollers interconnected via CANopen.

Incorporating CANopen drivers in on-chip ROM provides design engineers with easy-to-use API commands to the CANopen protocol, enabling rapid integration of the LPC11C00 series into CAN based networks. These drivers provide defined CAN and CANopen APIs to simplify CAN application development.

The following functions are included in the API:

* CAN set-up and initialization
* CAN send and receive messages
* CAN status
* CANopen Object Dictionary
* CANopen SDO expedited communication
* CANopen SDO segmented communication primitives
* CANopen SDO fall-back handler

Furthermore, these drivers are incorporated in low power ROM, freeing up to 8kB of user code space and offering the dual advantage of reduced operating power, as well as secure and safe bootloads via CAN or other on-chip serial channels. With the security and peace of mind of ROM-based drivers, updating Flash via In System Programming (ISP) over the CAN-bus provides the whole range of functionality from programming blank parts in production through changing system parameters to full in-field re-programmability.