In recent years, the variety of MCU products has become increasingly diverse, with more choices in areas such as power consumption, performance, cost, ecology, and supply chain. At the same time, the acceleration of digitization and intelligence in the industrial and automotive markets, as well as in the consumer market, has also brought new explosive points to General MCU. According to IC Insights, MCU shipments and average selling prices continued to grow between 2021 and 2022, exceeding $20 billion, with the industrial and automotive markets experiencing the largest growth.

Texas Instruments' 32-bit Arm Cortex M0+universal MCU MSPM0 is launched in this context. As Texas Instruments' first ARM Cortex M0+general-purpose MCU, will this product bring new vitality to the continuously hot MCU market? Linda Liu, Global Marketing Manager of Texas Instruments MSP HSM, summarized the characteristics of MSPM0 in three sentences in an interview with eeworld reporters: "More product portfolio, higher cost-effectiveness, and simpler to use.

More product combinations

Linda stated that although M0+has been around for more than a decade, with its low power consumption and high cost-effectiveness, the market demand remains strong, covering most applications from industry to automobiles, and from consumption to healthcare. In the general embedded market, the most important thing is to have a sufficient variety of products to cover various development or upgrade needs of customers. It is expected that MSPM0 will launch over 100 products this year, covering different packaging, pin count, temperature range, simulation, communication and other peripherals, while maintaining pin compatibility with packaged products. MSPM0 supports more functions in digital, analog, and other aspects while retaining low-power characteristics, and integrates in a flexible combination, "Linda said.

Especially in terms of simulation integration, MSPM0 fully utilizes Texas Instruments' rich accumulation in analog IP. For example, some MSPM0 products integrate two independent 12-bit ADCs, with significant bits up to 11.2, and support hardware over picking up to 14 bits; When sampling, the rate can reach up to 4 megabytes. However, it is difficult for a 12 bit ADC integrated with a typical MCU to achieve such high effective bits. MSPM0 also integrates a zero drift operational amplifier and a cross resistance amplifier internally, and the amplifier has a time-sharing pin multiplexing function, so it can replace more external operational amplifiers. In terms of interface, MSPM0 integrates CAN-FD control to better meet the needs of industrial or automotive applications. In terms of computing power, although MSPM0 uses the Arm Cortex M0+kernel, it also integrates a hardware math accelerator IP internally, which can directly support calculations such as division, square root, and inverse trigonometric functions to improve MCU computing power. In addition, in terms of timers, MSPM0 not only supports universal timers, but also supports advanced timers such as dead zone control and fault detection, which better supports applications such as motor control. In some applications, this integrated hardware accelerator approach may have higher equivalent computational power than the M4 kernel. Due to the requirements of the industrial and automotive sectors, MSPM0 has also strengthened safety management by supporting AES, TRNG, safe start, and ECC memory, thereby enhancing the safety performance of the product. In addition, the working range of MSPM0 can reach up to 125 ℃, making it suitable for expanding to more demanding industrial and automotive environments.

Higher cost-effectiveness

For embedded applications, BOM costs often need to be evaluated with emphasis, which is not only reflected in the product itself, but also needs to be considered as a whole within the system. The integration of MSPM0 is not only comprehensive, but its performance is excellent enough to replace external discrete components, not only increasing the customer's choice range, but also greatly optimizing the customer's BOM cost.

Simpler and easier to use

For MCU, development tools are an important consideration for engineering personnel. Texas Instruments provides full stack development tools, combined with various GUIs, as well as sufficient documentation and training tutorials, to reduce user development costs. Firstly, with the help of ARM's rich ecosystem, MSPM0 can leverage ARM's rich third-party platforms. At the same time, Texas Instruments is also building an open ecological platform, including multiple reference designs and codes such as middleware, driver libraries, operating systems, and motor control. All codes fully consider product compatibility and protect development costs. In addition, Texas Instruments has released CCS Theia, which is Eclipse's cloud and desktop platform, providing a better development experience and significantly improving development efficiency. In terms of graphical development tools, Texas Instruments provides two GUI tools, SysConfig and Analog Configuration, which can make peripheral configuration more user-friendly for users. Texas Instruments also provides an MSP Academy training platform for engineers, providing training tutorials for various modules, suitable for developers at all stages of learning.

More options, unlimited possibilities

As a major focus product line in the embedded field of Texas Instruments, MSPM0 aims to serve a broader mass market through a rich product portfolio, thereby further expanding Texas Instruments' market in MCU, embedded, and even peripheral analog products. With the help of MSPM0's new product line and abundant resource support, Texas Instruments has demonstrated its commitment to providing a scalable product portfolio, allowing engineers to flexibly innovate in almost any application, "Linda Liu said.