Luminary Micro Launches 34 New Stellaris(R) Microcontrollers Including the First Offering of Real-Time Internetworking and IEEE 1588 Support with the ARM Cortex(TM)-M3 Processor

Luminary Micro Launches 34 New Stellaris(R) Microcontrollers Including the First Offering of Real-Time Internetworking and IEEE 1588 Support with the ARM Cortex(TM)-M3 Processor

September 18, 2007

Additions to the Award-Winning Stellaris Family Also
Include High Pin Count Real-Time MCUs for Low-Power
Battery-Backed Applications


    AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 18 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- 

    Luminary Micro ( http://www.luminarymicro.com ),
creators of the award-winning Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3-based
microcontrollers, introduced today 34 new Stellaris
microcontrollers (MCUs), bringing innovative networking and
expanded control capabilities for real-time applications in
motion control, fire and security, remote sensing, HVAC and
building controls, power and energy monitoring and
conversion, network appliances and switches, factory
automation, electronic point-of-sale machines, test and
measurement equipment, medical instrumentation, and gaming
equipment.  

    Introduced today are 20 members of the Stellaris
LM3S1000 high pin count real-time MCU series, 11 members of
the Stellaris LM3S8000 Ethernet+CAN internetworking series,
and 3 new members of the Stellaris LM3S6000 Ethernet series
featuring hardware assist for IEEE 1588 Precision Time
Protocol (PTP) support.  These new MCUs extend the
world-class benefits of the Stellaris family with real-time
networking, larger on-chip memories, enhanced power
management, and expanded I/O capabilities.  Evaluation kits
for the new MCUs are available immediately through Luminary
Micro's global sales channel (
http://www.luminarymicro.com/sales ).  All of the new MCUs
are sampling today and will be available in volume
production later this quarter.

    The LM3S1000 series feature new combinations of
expanded general purpose I/O, larger on-chip memory, and
low-power optimization for battery-backed applications. 
The LM3S8000 series are the first MCUs in the world
featuring a fully-integrated 10/100 Mbps Ethernet with
Controller Area Network (CAN) connectivity in a single-chip
solution with ARM architecture compatibility.  The LM3S8000
devices combine both Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC)
and Physical (PHY) layers with up to 3 CAN interfaces
on-chip, marking the first time that integrated
internetworking connectivity is available with an ARM
Cortex-M3 MCU.  Professional-grade motion control hardware
is included in many of the new configurations, providing
some of the industry's most powerful solutions for
connected motion applications.  

    "Today's introductions affirm Luminary Micro's
commitment to lead innovation with the revolutionary
Cortex-M3 core," said Chief Marketing Officer Jean
Anne Booth. "The Stellaris family is the most
extensive family of Cotex-M3 products in the industry, and
today we are adding two more firsts to our roster by
bringing the first single-chip fully-integrated Ethernet
and CAN internetworking capability to designers previously
limited to 8- and 16-bit options, and by providing the
first microcontrollers with hardware assist for IEEE 1588
PTP support."

    "$1 to 1 GHz" in the World's Best Development
Ecosystem

    Stellaris family MCUs are based on the ARM Cortex-M3
processor, the microcontroller member of the ARM Cortex
processor family. Designed for serious microcontroller
applications, the Stellaris family provides entry into the
industry's strongest ecosystem, with code compatibility
ranging from $1 to 1 GHz. Additional advantages include: 

    -- Easy and cost-effective to upgrade from 8- and
16-bit applications,
       requiring less flash code space and delivering a 10x
improvement in 
       performance over 8051 cores and an 8x improvement in
performance over 
       PIC24F cores;

    -- Extends ARM7(TM) family processor capabilities in
critical MCU 
       applications with a 4x improvement in control
processing performance, 
       real-time interrupt response capability, and
predictable deterministic 
       interrupt behavior, while typically requiring just
half the flash code 
       space of ARM7 control applications;

    -- Greater than 50 MIPS with a demonstrable 20x
performance roadmap in the 
       Cortex processor family, allowing for a
"no-worry" migration path;

    -- Best-in-industry development environment and debug
tools. 


    Ground-Breaking Integration: First MCUs with
Hardware-Assisted IEEE 1588 PTP Support

    Three of the new Stellaris LM3S6000 Ethernet series
MCUs and six of the new Stellaris LM3S8000 Ethernet+CAN
internetworking MCUs feature hardware assist for IEEE 1588
PTP support.  The IEEE 1588 standard provides a mechanism
for synchronizing distributed real-time clocks in a
packet-based multicast network such as Ethernet. 
Time-based synchronization is the preferred method for
synchronizing control systems (especially motion control)
over networks because it is not as susceptible to jitter as
other synchronization methods and is also based on absolute
time, making it easier to program.  Additional benefits of
this standard include the use of inexpensive network
components, fault tolerance, hot plugging capability, and
self-configuration.  Networked variable frequency drives
require synchronization accuracy in the tens of
milliseconds, and servo-controlled systems require accuracy
in the few hundreds of nanoseconds.  Stellaris
implementations using the open source lwIP TCP/IP stack and
open source 1588 PTPd stack achieve within 500nS
synchronization accuracy, a greater than ten fold
improvement over typical software-only implementations.   

    Stellaris Offers Unprecedented Integration for
Internetworking Applications

    Eleven of the new MCUs feature both on-chip Ethernet
MAC and PHY and up to 3 integrated CAN controllers, making
Stellaris the only ARM-based MCU to offer this useful
combination for real-time internetworking applications.  
With Ethernet features including 10/100 Mbps full and
half-duplex operation, automatic MDI/MDI-X cross-over
correction, programmable MAC address, promiscuous mode
support, and generous single-cycle 2KB transmit and 2KB
receive buffers, and Bosch-licensed CAN controllers
featuring bit rates up to 1 Mbps, 32 message objects per
controller, and automatic transmission disable for TTCAN
(time-triggered communication on CAN), the powerful
communications capabilities in the LM3S8000 series offer
more options for both control and internetworking
applications. 

    New Stellaris MCUs Optimized for Battery-Backed
Applications

    Thirty-two of the new MCUs feature a battery-backed
hibernation module that includes a real-time clock, a
generous 256 bytes of non-volatile battery-backed memory,
and the ability to wake on a real-time clock match,
external pin interrupt, or low battery event.  Even using
the real-time clock in hibernate mode, a standard CR2032
watch battery can support a Stellaris microcontroller in
hibernate mode for over 3 years. 

    For detailed information on the features of each
Stellaris family member, see
http://www.luminarymicro.com/product_selector_guide . 

    Evaluation Kits Have Developers Up and Running In 10
Minutes Or Less

    This announcement includes the immediate availability
of two complete evaluation kits: the Stellaris LM3S1968
Evaluation Kit (US $59) and the Stellaris LM3S8962
Ethernet+CAN Evaluation Kit (US $89).  Each feature-rich
evaluation kit includes evaluation boards, all required
cables, a choice of evaluation tools suites for popular
development tools, documentation, the Stellaris Peripheral
Driver Library (providing a convenient, no-hassle method of
initializing, programming, and controlling peripherals),
applications notes, and everything a developer needs to get
up and running in 10 minutes or less, for a superb
"out-of-the-box" experience.  Both kits span the
design spectrum from evaluation to prototyping to
application-specific design by functioning both as an
evaluation platform and as a serial in-circuit debug
interface for any Stellaris microcontroller-based target
board. 

    Evaluation tools suite choices for the kits include ARM
RealView(R) Microcontroller Development kit (MDK), IAR
Embedded Workbench(R) Kickstart Edition, and CodeSourcery
Sourcery G++(TM) GNU tools.  In addition, ported demos of
RTOSes  include FreeRTOS.org(TM), Micrium uC/OS-II with
uC/Probe embedded system monitoring, Express Logic
ThreadX(R), CMX Systems CMX-RTX(TM), Keil(TM) RTX, IAR
PowerPac(TM), and SEGGER embOS.   Communications stacks
available for the Stellaris LM3S8962 Ethernet+CAN
Evaluation Kit include Express Logic NetX(TM) TCP/IP;
InterNiche TCP/IP NicheStack(TM), NicheLITE(TM), and add-on
modules such as HTTP, SNMP, and security protocols; CMX
Systems CMX-MicroNet(TM) and CMX-CANopen(TM);
FreeRTOS.org-based open source uIP stack; Micrium
uC/TCP-IP, uC/Modbus and uC/CAN; and RTA Automation
EtherNET/IP(TM) and DeviceNet(TM).  

    About Luminary Micro and Stellaris

    Luminary Micro, Inc. designs, markets and sells ARM
Cortex-M3-based microcontrollers (MCUs). Austin,
Texas-based Luminary Micro is the lead partner for the
Cortex-M3 processor, delivering the world's first silicon
implementation of the Cortex-M3 processor. Developed for
use in embedded and industrial applications, Luminary
Micro's introduction of the award-winning Stellaris(R)
family of products provides 32-bit performance for the same
price as current 8- and 16-bit microcontroller designs. With
entry-level pricing at $1.00 for an ARM technology-based
MCU, Luminary Micro's Stellaris product line allows for
standardization that eliminates future architectural
upgrades or software tools changes. Contact the company at
[phone] or email [e-mail] for more
information. 

    Stellaris is a registered trademark and the Luminary
Micro logo is a trademark of Luminary Micro, Inc. or its
subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. All
other products are trademarks of their respective owners.


    For more information, please contact:

     Company Contact:
     Jean Anne Booth, CMO
     Tel:   [phone] 
     Cell:  [phone]
     Email: [e-mail]