Tiny ARM Packs A Punch

May 12, 2005

It's only 5 mm on a side (25 mm2). But the extremely small wafer-level, chip-size package (WCSP) houses a 32-bit microcontroller with some impressive memory and peripherals. The plastic WCSP is robust enough to handle standard surface-mount processing, so

William G. Wong

It's only 5 mm on a side (25 mm²). But the extremely small wafer-level, chip-size package (WCSP) houses a 32-bit microcontroller with some impressive memory and peripherals. The plastic WCSP is robust enough to handle standard surface-mount processing, so designers get performance without breaking the budget. A layer of copper evenly distributes heat when attaching the chip to a board.

The ML67Q406x (see the table), and its external-bus ML67Q405x sibling, use a 33-MHz ARM7TDMI code. The no-wait-state flash suits the part for real-time embedded applications. The large 16-kbyte SRAM provides plenty of work space for applications.

The chip holds a strong array of peripherals, including a pair of flexible DMA controllers; a multimaster I2C controller; a pair of 9-bit UARTs; two synchronous serial interfaces with SPI support; a four-channel, 10-bit analog-to-digital converter; a pair of I2S interfaces; and synchronized timers with pulse-width-modulation (PWM) support. The ML67Q406x can run on as little as 2.5 V. It only requires 25 mA of current in stop mode.

ML67Q406x pricing starts at $3.98 in an LQFP. A wide range of third-party software vendors, including Keil, Green Hills Software, and IAR, support the chip. Development boards are available as well.

For more information, visit Oki Semiconductor's Web site at www.okisemi.com.

ML67Q406X PeripheralsFour-channel, 10-bit ADC
Two SPI/synchronous serial
Two 9-bit UARTS
MultiMaster I2C
Codecs, dual I2S TX/RX channels
Two DMA, six 16-bit timers/PWMPackaging64-pin WCSP
64-pin LQFP
84-pin LFBGAPower 2.5 to 3.3 VPricing Starts at $3.98

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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