Atmel Doubles the Memory of ARM7 Microcontrollers to 512KBytes

Atmel doubles the memory density of its  AT91SAM7S, SAM7X and SAM7XC microcontrollers, from 256Kbytes to 512Kbytes.

The Flash memory on the AT91SAM7S512, SAM7X512 and SAM7XC512 is arranged in two separate banks that allow the device to be programmed simultaneously with application execution. The implementation of dual-banking memory  protects the application against potentially catastrophic failure during firmware updates.

Atmel also doubles the density of the zero-wait-state, 32-bit wide SRAM on its AT91SAM7X512 and SAM7XC512 from 64 to 128K bytes. This improvement is intended to meet next generation application  requirements which need more memory, bandwidth and security.

Like all of Atmel's SAM7 MCUs, the new devices have 11 to 13 dedicated peripheral DMA channels that increase on-chip bandwidth from a maximum of 4 Mbps, on conventional ARM7 microcontrollers, to 25 Mbps or more. This increases the number of CPU operations available to the application.

Atmel's AT91SAM7XC provides enhanced encryption capability by integrating a 128 bit, 192 bit or 256 bit AES or triple-DES encryption in hardware.

Jacko Wilbrink, Atmel, said:

While the smaller SAM7S series, starting with 32K to 512K bytes of on-chip Flash, is dominant in the consumer space for applications like USB- enabled PC accessories and toys, the SAM7X family, with on-chip Ethernet and CAN, is winning market share in telecom infrastructure, medical, building automation and alarm systems. We expect the newest SAM7XC, with embedded AES and 3DES encryption, to achieve significant market share in secured systems…

Price for the 512K Flash variants of  SAM7S, SAM7X and SAM7XC is around $6 (at 10K)

Source Atmel ARM AT91 Microcontrollers