New generation of domestic main controller for network printers: N32G457 series MCU chip

A network printer is a built-in or external print server that is connected to a local area network, the Internet, or a wireless network as an independent device, thereby freeing the printer from its traditional status as a computer peripheral and making it an independent member of the Internet of Things terminal device, and enabling shared printing among multiple machines.

Figure 1: Network Thermal Printer

Network printer components

Network printers are widely used in network printing scenarios in industries such as catering tickets, logistics labels, retail stores, and lottery. They are mainly composed of five parts: thermal print head and its peripheral circuits, main controller (MCU) circuit, power supply, communication interface circuit, and human-computer interaction.

Figure 2 Network printer structure diagram

2. Key features of mainstream network printers

Print Quality

Print quality is an important indicator for evaluating network printers. The quality of print is mainly reflected in the clarity of the print. In addition to the print head and thermal paper, the clarity also depends on the performance of the MCU that coordinates the control of the print head and paper rolling.

Processing speed

Processing speed is a key indicator for evaluating network printers. The printing speed of a network printer is affected by the processing performance of the built-in processor (MCU), memory and print head. Currently, the mainstream speed of network printers on the market is 180~200mm/s.

Network connectivity

In the era of the Internet of Things, terminals need to improve their network connection capabilities to achieve resource sharing. Common network printing methods on the market include wired Ethernet, serial port, USB, Bluetooth, WiFi and other connection methods. Different connection capabilities are reflected in the richness of MCU peripherals and network processing capabilities.

What problems does National Technology's N32G457 series MCU solve in network printer solutions?

Figure 3. Network printer architecture based on N32G457 series MCU

Provide higher system processing capabilities: Adopt 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F core, with main frequency up to 144MHz and SRAM up to 144KB, effectively improving system printing performance, supporting printing of one-dimensional code, two-dimensional code, pictures, logos, etc., combined with hardware-level optimization, the printing speed is improved.

Provides a wider range of connectivity capabilities: supports 10/100M Ethernet MAC interface, as well as traditional USB and other commonly used peripheral interfaces. By adding Bluetooth and WiFi, you can also use mobile terminals (such as mobile phones, PADs, counter machines) APPs to print wirelessly via Bluetooth and WiFi, fully covering the common connection methods on the market.

Rich digital/analog interfaces: Up to 97 reusable I/Os, supporting 7 UARTs, 3 SPIs, and 4 I2C interfaces. It also has a built-in 12-bit 5Msps high-speed and high-precision ADC, supporting up to 40 analog input channels. The rich on-chip resources support paper out detection, high temperature detection, low battery detection, paper cutting function, and automatic standby to enter low power consumption state when there is no connection.

Stronger expansion capabilities:

Integrated XFMC memory expansion interface, which can expand SRAM/PSRAM, cache more printing content, and improve the user experience when printing pictures and sharing printing among multiple people.

Integrated high-speed QSPI interface, the FLASH font reading speed is increased by more than 4 times (the font information stored in the external QSPI Flash is used to support multiple text printing, such as ASCII, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other different language printing).

High-level copyright protection mechanism: The main controller has built-in more than 10 hardware cryptographic algorithm acceleration engines to reduce firmware code overhead, support internal Flash storage encryption and multi-user partitioning functions, protect developers' firmware from being stolen, and support secure boot of the entire machine.

N32G457 series MCU core parameters:

The N32G457 series uses a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F core with a maximum operating frequency of 144MHz, supports floating-point operations and DSP instructions, integrates up to 512KB Flash, 144KB SRAM, 4x12bit 5Msps ADC, 4xOPAMP, 7xCOMP, 2x1Msps 12bit DAC, supports up to 24-channel capacitive touch buttons, integrates multiple U(S)ART, I2C, SPI, QSPI, USB, CAN communication interfaces, 10/100M Ethernet interface, digital camera interface, built-in cryptographic algorithm hardware acceleration engine, and the specific configuration is as follows:

Figure 4. N32G457 series MCU product selection table

In summary, the National Technology N32G457 series MCU has achieved excellent characteristics of strong performance and abundant resources by improving the integration of peripheral interfaces and processing performance. These characteristics effectively improve printing performance and reduce costs. At the same time, it also provides solution-level protection capabilities such as anti-tampering and anti-copying functions.