AUSTIN, Texas, September 18 /PRNewswire/ --

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

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
US$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 US$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
+1-512-279-8800 or email press@luminarymicro.com 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.

Company Contact:
    Jean Anne Booth, CMO
    +1-512-917-3088 mobile
    +1-512-279-8801 office
    JeanAnne.Booth@luminarymicro.com



Web site: http://www.luminarymicro.com