Cypress PSoC devices can be dynamically reconfigured and are popular in automotive and other fields

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Cypress PSoC devices can be dynamically reconfigured and are popular in automotive and other fields [Copy link]

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. recently announced that sales of its Programmable System-on-Chip ( PSoC ) mixed-signal array devices have exceeded 100 million units, a figure that fully demonstrates the widespread acceptance of this high-performance, low-cost mixed-signal integration platform in the market. Cypress is currently selling PSoC devices to more than 2,000 customers in Asia, Europe and the United States, and its application areas are very broad, covering consumer electronics, mobile phones, computing and networking equipment, industrial systems and automotive systems. In December 2005, Cypress announced that its PSoC device shipments broke a record of 50 million units. “With more than 100 million PSoC devices sold for a variety of applications, Cypress is validating a configurable and reconfigurable design model that includes processors and mixed logic, and a seamless visual software programming tool to support that model,” said Max Baron, principal analyst at market research firm In-Stat. CapSense solutions greatly promote the demand for PSoC Cypress's new CapSense solutions for capacitive touch-sensing interfaces are driving strong demand for PSoC devices. A CapSense device can replace many mechanical switches and controllers with a simple touch-sensing controller. CapSense-based button and slider controllers are more reliable than mechanical products with similar functions because they are not as susceptible to external wear and tear as exposed buttons and switches. CapSense solutions have been widely adopted in countless systems and applications, including mobile phones, white appliances and consumer electronics. PSoC devices have also achieved strong growth in other areas, including fan motor control, battery charging applications and LED control. PSoC devices are configurable mixed-signal arrays that integrate an 8-bit microcontroller with many peripheral components commonly found in embedded designs. PSoC devices offer the benefits of ASICs without the typical ASIC NRE or turnaround time. A single PSoC device can integrate up to 100 peripheral components and microcontrollers, saving customers design time, reducing board space and power consumption, and reducing system costs by as much as 5 cents to $10. Easy-to-use development tools enable designers to select configurable library elements to provide analog functions (such as amplifiers, ADCs, DACs, filters, and comparators) and digital functions (such as timers, counters, PWMs, SPIs, and UARTs). PSoC's analog performance includes rail-to-rail inputs, programmable gain amplifiers, and ADCs with resolutions up to 14 bits, as well as ultra-low noise, input leakage current, and voltage offsets. PSoC devices also include up to 32KB of flash memory, 2KB of SRAM, an 8×8 multiplier with a 32-bit accumulator, power and sleep monitoring circuits, and hardware I2C communication circuits. All PSoC devices are dynamically reconfigurable, allowing designers to create new system functions at will. By being able to reconfigure the same silicon for different functions at different times, designers can achieve more than 120% silicon utilization in many cases. In the automotive PSoC LIN bus reference design, the same digital part is reconfigured up to 4 times to support different LIN communication modes; this way, these parts consume less than 10% of PSoC hardware resources and PSoC MCU cycles.