| | By John Daly in Germany @ Monday, February 23, 2009 2:06 PM
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| | British chip design house ARM has announced the newest member of its Cortex processor family.
ARM boasts the new 32-bit Cortex M0 processor is the tiniest and most power-efficient processer design available from the company and will give microcontroller developers 32-bit performance for an 8-bit price. The M0 is an absolutely tiny 12,000 gate processor, which apparently merely devours 85 microwatts/MHz (0,0085 milliwatts).
The low-power processor is compatible with ARMs more powerful chips. ARM is offering it for system-on-a-chip and as a microcontroller for ZigBee and Z-Wave kit, electric motor controls, toys, medical devices, gaming accessories and anything else under the sun which can make do with little. It can also be used for mixed signal applications such as actuators and sensors, as the small size allows it to be put on a die alongside analog devices.
 NXP Semiconductor and Triad Semiconductor have already licensed the M0.
“By providing 32-bit performance in a 16-bit footprint, the ARM Cortex-M0 processor, enables us to reduce silicon and energy costs without compromising product enhancements or upward code compatibility, making it an ideal complement to the Cortex-M3 architecture that we use across our products,' said Geoff Lees, vice president of NXP Semi's microcontroller unit.
The M0 supports the Keil-ARM microcontroller developer kit and ARM's Cortex microcontroller software interface standard (CMSIS). The processor rounds off the low end of ARM's Cortex processors.
ARM announced it's top-end Cortex processors were hitting 32nm and designs would be available this year. X
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