FTDI breaks into 32bit microcontrollers

Glasgow-based FTDI has revealed a 32bit microcontroller at Embedded World.

Yielding 2.93Dmips/MHz, it is designed to work alone, or with the firm’s novel FT800 embedded video engine (EVE) – a surprise release at last years Embedded World.

Running at up to 100MHz, “it delivers the levels of processing needed to make considerable impact in video over IP, surveillance, quality audio, industrial inspection and door entry intercom system deployments,” claimed the firm.

Rather than licence a core, FTDI has produced a proprietary 32bit RISC core called FT32.

This is at the centre of its new FT900 microcontroller, surrounded with 256kbyte program memory and 64kbyte of data memory.

“By executing instructions from shadow RAM, rather than flash memory, it can operate at true zero wait states up to 100MHz and 293Dmips,” said FTDI.

Interfaces include 480Mbit/s USB 2.0, and a VGA (640×480 pixels) video camera interface.

“FT900 provides a plethora of connectivity options, making it suited to bridging solutions. The MCU’s unique data streaming domain eliminates the need for complex direct memory access [DMA] interfacing to transfer data internally,” said the firm, which s getting a name for itself for unusual archetectures – the FT800 video chip entirely does away with video RAM by calculating all pixels for every frame on-the-fly.

Bridging different communication standards is bread and butter business for FTDI.

Along with the camera interface, the microcontroller has 10/100 Ethernet support with built-in physical layer, CAN bus support, I2C slave and master, I2S for external audio, SPI slave and master, SD card interface (2.0) and PWMs.

FT901 is a version without the CAN controller.

Alongside these are a 7channel multiplexed 10bit, 1Msample/s ADC and 10bit 1MHz DAC.

“We try to put ourselves into hardware designers’ shoes, so that every device has unique merit,” said FTDI founder and CEO Fred Dart. “The FT900 series is flat-out blazing fast. When paired with our EVE product, it can enable the realisation of video, audio and control functions. The Ethernet and CAN bus interfaces mean that is suitable for commercial, residential and automotive design projects.”

Both FT900 and FT901 come in QFN100 packages and operate over -40°C to 85°C.

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via Yuichun