That the reports about the death of Atmel products ever since Microchip took over the company have been an exaggeration is, once more, proven with the introduction of twain new branches in the ever-growing SAM family of 32-bit ARM-Cortex-M-based microcontrollers. The new devices combine a Cortex-M4 core with a Floating Point Unit (FPU) enabling process-intensive applications on a low-power platform (65 uA/MHz). 

Running at up to 120 MHz, the SAM D5x and E5x MCUs feature up to 1 MB of dual-panel Flash with Error Correction Code (ECC), enabling live firmware updates without interrupting the running system.

Both families include a Quad Serial Peripheral Interface (QSPI) featuring Execute in Place (XIP), allowing the use of inexpensive high-performance serial Flash memories for external memory needs. The devices also come with a Secure Digital Host Controller (SDHC) for data logging, and a Peripheral Touch Controller (PTC) for capacitive touch capabilities. Hardware-based security features include a Public Key Cryptographic Controller (PUKCC) supporting Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and RSA schemes as well as an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cipher and Secure Hash Algorithms (SHA).

Compared to the D5 family, the E5 also includes two CAN-FD ports and a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Media Access Controller (MAC) with IEEE 1588 support.

Photo: Microchip