Atmel has sampled the Atmel SAM4S16, an Cortex-M4 processor-based microcontroller, and has also unveiled its fifth generation Cortex-M4 based flash microcontrollers. The SAM4S16 microcontroller operates at a maximum speed of 120MHz with 1024kbyte flash and 128kbyte SRAM with a peripheral set featuring full-speed USB, high-speed SDIO/SD/MMC, UARTs, two wire interfaces, SPI, I2S, 12bit ADC and DAC and an external bus interface supporting pseudostatic RAM, LCD modules, NOR flash, and NAND flash. The microcontroller offers hardware code protection and supports Atmel QTouch technology for touch button, slider and wheel functionality. According to the company, its ARM Cortex-M4 flash microcontrollers will offer up to 2Mbyte flash, 192kbyte of SRAM, extensive peripherals that include high-speed USB OTG with on-chip transceiver, Ethernet and CAN. The SAM4 microcontrollers are suitable for medical, power management, motor control, smart metering, industrial automation and embedded audio applications. The company's ARM-based microcontrollers are supplied with integrated development tool and software package and are upward, pin-to-pin compatible with the company's ARM Cortex-M3 based SAM3 flash microcontrollers.
