Crossover processors offer high-performance processing with MCU ease-of-use

Mouser now offers the i.MX RT crossover processors from NXP Semiconductors. Combining the high performance of a processor with the real-time functionality and ease-of-use of an MCU, the highly integrated series supports a wide range of applications, including industrial and home automation, IoT gateways, robotics, motor control, and audio subsystems. These crossover processors are based on an Arm Cortex-M7 core that operates at 600MHz, more than 50% faster than other Cortex-M7 products. The processors tout a robust feature set that includes advanced multimedia capabilities, high-speed extensive external memory interfaces, and a healthy assortment of both wired and wireless connectivity options. The series processors operate on half the run mode power of other Cortex-M7 products, enabling longer battery life. In addition to speed and integrated processing power, the series also supports greater design flexibility for engineers through an extensive array of external memory interfaces (include NAND, eMMC, QuadSPI NOR Flash, and Parallel NOR Flash) and connectivity options as well as security features to protect applications from outside threats. The series supports wired Ethernet and USB, plus Wi-Fi, classic Bluetooth and Bluetooth low energy, ZigBee and Thread. To keep applications secure, the processors provide 128-bit AES cryptography and true random number generation, high assurance booting, and on-the-fly QSPI flash decryption. The high-speed interfaces, combined with the on-the-fly decryption capabilities, enable designers to have secure external data storage without the need for embedded flash. MCU designers can maintain their current tool chain (such as MCUXpresso, IAR, and Keil) without worrying about the time, cost or complexity of adding Linux software development to their design cycle. The devices also enable rapid prototyping and development with NXP’s FreeRTOS, SDK, Arm mbed and the global Arm ecosystem, which provide software libraries and online tools and support.