microcontroller

Cadence has launched a processor core aimed at ‘always on’ signal-processing applications such as voice detection and recognition for wearables.

Texas Instruments has launched a family of ARM-based microcontrollers intended to act as a migration path from its low-energy 16bit MSP430 series, developing its own flash-capable 90nm process to implement them.

The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) has released a benchmark suite aimed at applications processors and higher-performance microcontrollers with floating-point units.

Research by the University of Michigan into subthreshold circuit design has led to spinoff company Ambiq Micro creating a family of microcontrollers that it claims provide an ARM Cortex-M4F with power consumption at levels normally associated with an M0+.

Does the internet of things (IoT) require a change in design techniques? A number of people involved in the EDA industry reckon it does.

Xmos has designed a modular prototyping board for its XA devices, which combine the company's own real-time, multithreaded processor core with an ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller.

ARM's latest core, the dual-issue M7 borrows features from the Cortex-R family for safety-critical applications as well as adding the option of cache memory.

ARM and Synopsys both plan to make inroads to the internet of things with their IP strategies.