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The ‘A’ series is the lower-cost branch of the MCX family, and like other MCX MCUs, the devices are built around an Arm Cortex-M33 core – this is the security-enabled M3.
The first parts are MCX A14x (48MHz core) and MCX A15x (96MHz core), which come in LQFP and QFN packages spanning 32 to 64 pads.
“The devices feature support brushless dc and permanent magnet synchronous motor control, and integrate I3C, I2C and SPI sensor interfaces,” according to the company. “The MCX A series will offer a variety of package and memory variants up to 1Mbyte flash as the platform extends throughout 2024.”
Some of the peripherals can act autonomously, allowing the CPU to consume less power.
These include: serial comms (buffers, programmable data collection range and DMA), 4Msample/s 12bit ADC (hardware windowing and averaging), DAC, op-amp (averaging and peak detection), PWM (three output pairs with dead-time control), and encoder for motor applications.
For development, there is the FRDM-MCXA153 board (left), which is supported by the company’s MCUXpresso ecosystem of software and tools.
“Developers can choose to work with either MCUXpresso for Visual Studio Code or Eclipse-based MCUXpresso IDE from NXP, or with IDEs from IAR and Keil that also offer safety certification,” according to NXP, which provides drivers and middleware with examples and tools for device configuration and security.
FreeRTOS and Zephyr are also supported.
Applications are foreseen in industrial sensors, motor control, battery controls and IoT devices.
