Texas Instruments Inc. has announced the availability of two Cortex-A8 based microprocessors optimized for industrial applications. Cortex-A8 is developed by ARM Holdings plc .
The parts are numbered AM3505 and AM3517 ARM microprocessors and there also an evalutation module numbered EVM3517. The two chips are the first in TI's Sitara family and complement the Stellaris family of Cortex-M3 based microcontrollers.

The AM35xx devices offer multiple device packages, industrial temperature options, peripherals integration and graphics capabilities at a power consumption of less than 1 watt.

The A8 processor core offers 500-MHz clock frequency and 1000 Dhrystone MIPS performance. An integrated CAN controller supports local control of sensors and controllers and connectivity options include USB 2.0 a 10/100 Ethernet MAC. The chips support DDR2 memory and have 3.3-volt I/O.

The AM3517 builds on the capabilities of the AM3505 with the addition of a PowerVR SGX graphics engine to accelerate 3-D graphical user interfaces. The graphics engine can process up to 10-Mpolygons per second and supports the OPENGL ES 2.0 standard. The two devices are sampling in 0.65-mm BGA and 1-mm BGA package options. The AM3505 is priced at $21.45 and the AM3517 at $24 in 1,000 unit quantities.

Designers can use the $999 EVM3517 evaluation module with a Linux software development kit. Windows Embedded CE support is planned for 4Q09 and additional operating systems and RTOS are planned for 1Q 2010.

By: DocMemory
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