NXP Unveils Industry’s First Cortex-M0 Microcontrollers with Integrated Segment LCD Drivers

LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 drive high-contrast LCD displays at a compelling price point

Eindhoven, Netherlands and San Jose, California - NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) today introduced the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 series of microcontrollers – the first ARM® Cortex™-M0 microcontrollers with integrated segment LCD drivers, enabling high contrast and brightness in a single chip. Featuring the NXP PCF8576D LCD driver, the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 are capable of driving any static or multiplexed Liquid Crystal Displays containing up to 4 backplanes and 40 segments, and can be easily cascaded with multiple segment LCD drivers to accommodate up to 2560 segments for larger display applications. With the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00, NXP can now lower overall system cost up to 15 percent while providing seamless LCD integration into a wide range of applications including industrial automation, white goods, lighting, home appliances, and portable medical devices. NXP is showcasing the new display microcontrollers at ESC Boston this week (booth 800).



“Our Cortex-M0 microcontrollers have been tremendously popular as a straightforward replacement for 8- and 16-bit MCUs in white goods and industrial applications. Now we are offering a simple Cortex-M0 solution for system designers who want to be able to drive high-quality, high-contrast segment LCD displays without having to use two chips, or get locked in to legacy MCU architectures,” said Jan Jaap Bezemer, director of marketing, microcontroller product line, NXP Semiconductors. “The LPC11D and LPC12D series offer a cost-effective entry-level option in our Cortex-M LCD portfolio, which includes Cortex-M3-based graphical LCD controllers capable of driving TFT and STN displays. These latest additions also underscore the wealth of options available through the NXP ARM continuum.”



In contrast to typical segment LCD driver solutions today, the highly reliable NXP PCF8576D LCD driver supports a wide LCD supply range from 2.5 V to 6.5 V, making the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 an ideal choice for interfacing with both low-threshold and high-threshold LCDs. The integrated PCF8576D increases system reliability and quality, and reduces electrical interconnect and compatibility issues, while incorporating key features such as on-chip display RAM and versatile blinking modes. In addition to blinking the whole display, the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 also support alternate messages to be displayed at a configurable blink frequency on an arbitrary selection of LCD elements. Display data sent from microcontroller can be stored in the 40 x 4-bit on-chip display RAM which supports a direct mapping to the LCD elements on the display. Furthermore, these features can be maintained while the microcontroller is in low-power mode, making the LPC11D00 and LPC12D00 a competitive solution for low-power 8/16-bit applications that require low-cost segment LCD integration.



The LPC11D00 supports up to 32 KB of Flash, 8 KB of SRAM and offers a rich peripheral set, including 2 SSPs, I2C (FM+), UART, 4 system timers and a 8-channel high-precision 10-bit ADC. As an extension of the energy-efficient LPC1100L family, the LPC11D00 also features unique API-driven power profiles providing users with ready-to-use power management templates allowing designers to do runtime optimization of performance, efficiency and active power consumption with simple API calls.



The LPC12D00 extends the feature set of the LPC11D00 with up to 128 KB of Flash and highly innovative analog peripherals such as dual analog comparators with 32 levels of voltage reference, edge and level detection, and output feedback loop. As the newest addition to the LPC1200 Industrial Control Series, the LPC12D00 is a highly reliable solution for safety-critical industrial automation and white goods applications. The LPC1200 family is rated as high immunity, based on the Electrical Fast Transient (EFT) test conducted by Langer EMV-Technik GmbH per IEC61697-1 recommendations and is IEC 60730 Class B-certified.


Key Features of the LPC11D00

The NXP LPC11D00 display microcontroller is the latest addition to the popular LPC1100L family of ultra-low-power Cortex-M0 microcontrollers, and offers the following features:

- Speeds of up to 50 MHz for the LPC1100L
- 32 vectored interrupts; 4 priority levels; dedicated interrupts on up to 13 GPIOs
- UART, 1-2 SSP, I2C (FM+) as serial peripherals
- Two 16-bit and two 32-bit timers with PWM/Match/Capture
- 12 MHz internal RC oscillator with 1 percent accuracy over temperature and voltage
- Power-On-Reset (POR); multi-level Brown-Out-Detect (BOD); Phase-Locked Loop (PLL)
- 8-channel high-precision 10-bit ADC with ±1LSB DNL

The LPC11D00 series combines this rich feature set with the ARM Cortex-M0 v6-M 16-bit Thumb instruction set, enabling up to 50-percent higher code density compared to common 8/16-bit microcontrollers performing typical tasks.


Key Features of the LPC12D00

The NXP LPC12D00 display microcontroller is an extension of the highly robust LPC1200 Industrial Control Series, and includes up to 55 GPIOs, multiple timers/serial channels, and onboard peripherals including RTC, DMA, CRC and 1-percent internal oscillator, which provides the required accuracy for baud rate generation. Other unique features include:

- A Windowed Watchdog Timer with an independent internal oscillator source, designed to comply with IEC 60730 Class B safety requirements for white goods
- A Programmable Digital Filter on all GPIO pins allowing better control of signal integrity for industrial applications
- Optimized ROM-based divide library for Cortex-M0 offering several times the arithmetic performance of software-based libraries, as well as a highly deterministic cycle time combined with reduced Flash code size
- Dual analog comparators with 32 levels of voltage reference, edge and level detection and output feedback loop

Pricing and Availability

The NXP LPC11D14 and LPC12D27 microcontrollers are currently sampling and will be available from distributors worldwide in Q4 2011 in 32-KB and 128-KB Flash sizes. Recommended distribution unit pricing for 10,000 piece quantities is US $1.53 for the LPC11D14FBD100/302 and $2.19 for the LPC12D27FB100. Further information on NXP Cortex-M0 microcontrollers is available at: http://www.nxp.com/cortex-m0


About NXP

NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) provides High Performance Mixed Signal and Standard Product solutions that leverage its leading RF, Analog, Power Management, Interface, Security and Digital Processing expertise. These innovations are used in a wide range of automotive, identification, wireless infrastructure, lighting, industrial, mobile, consumer and computing applications. A global semiconductor company with operations in more than 25 countries, NXP posted revenue of $4.4 billion in 2010.