Oki Semiconductor Strengthens Presence in North American MCU Market With Simple, Low-Cost ARM Core-Based MCU

New Oki Product Line Uses Award-Winning microPlat(TM) Design Methodology To Speed Delivery of 32-Bit Platform at 16-Bit Cost

SAN FRANCISCO, Embedded Systems Conference, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Oki Semiconductor, a leading technology partner for the new era of digital communications and convergence, today unveiled the ML674000, an ARM® core-based 32-bit Micro-Controller Unit (MCU), and the first of a line of standard MCU products available from Oki in North America. Designed using the industry-leading ARM7TDMI® core, AMBA® on-chip interconnect, and Oki's award-winning microPlat silicon platform, the ML674000 was developed to provide a flexible, off-the-shelf, low-cost solution to designers seeking shorter development times. As a general purpose MCU, Oki's new ML674000 represents a fundamental transition away from the proprietary models of the MCU market and provides an easy, affordable transition path to a 32-bit platform.

Designers of industrial controllers, security/surveillance systems, medical instruments, games, toys, digital players, and other devices can now use ARM's popular software development tools and Oki's feature-rich hardware to shorten time to market while lowering their costs. The ML674000 will be featured at the Embedded Systems Conference (Booth #713) this week.

"Customers reliant upon a wide variation of 16- or 32-bit MCUs can now take advantage of an industry-standard ARM architecture and readily available software development tools at a lower cost," said Ike Saeed, vice president of Marketing for Oki Semiconductor. "With Oki's established commitment to customer service and partnership with ARM, customers can be assured of the fastest design and development cycles."

"The availability of powerful standard devices such as the Oki ML674000 series based on the ARM7TDMI core enables microcontroller customers to share the benefits of using a widely adopted RISC core, such as broad tools and software availability," said Steve Evans, VP Segment Marketing, ARM. "Oki has a long history of supplying standard products to the market and we are pleased that they have chosen the ARM architecture for this new series."

Central to the ML674000 is Oki's winning microPlat silicon platform, a powerful methodology to facilitate parallel development of new SOC and ASSP designs. Using microPlat, Oki is able to shorten the MCU design process while at the same time developing a wide range of additional ARM core-based MCUs planned for the North American market.

Features of the ML674000 include:

     -- High-performance ARM7TDMI core-based 32-bit CPU
     -- Interrupt controller with 24 interrupts
     -- 2 Channels of DMA
     -- 16-bit System and Counter timers
     -- 2x16-bit PWM
     -- 1x16-bit WDT
     -- 2 Channels of UART
     -- 2x16-bit GPIO
     -- 8x10-bit ADC
     -- 128 TQFP Package
     -- AMBA test controller
     -- Up to 33Hz operating frequency
     -- Operating temperature:  -40 to +85 oC

Price and Availability

Samples of Oki Semiconductor's ML674000 are available now, and pricing is $4.95 at 10,000 units. More information about Oki Semiconductor's ASIC and Logic solutions can be found at: www.okisemi.com.

About Oki Semiconductor

Building on Oki's century-long commitment to communications technologies and markets, Oki Semiconductor designs and markets a broad line of advanced integrated circuits for telecommunications, network, automotive, computer, and consumer products. Oki's product lines include telecommunications, RF, laser, networking, speech synthesis, ASIC, microcontroller, and memory devices, offered in a variety of creative packages. Founded in 1977 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Oki Semiconductor is a division of Oki America Inc., which is a subsidiary of Oki Electric Industry Co, Ltd. Oki has ISO-9000-certified manufacturing facilities in Japan and Thailand. Information on Oki Semiconductor and its products is available through its Web site at http://www.okisemi.com .

Oki Semiconductor ... the Right Partner for a Digital World(TM).

NOTE: ARM, ARM7TDMI and AMBA is a registered trademark of ARM Limited. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders. ARM is used to represent ARM Holdings plc (Nasdaq: ARMHY; London: ARM); its operating company ARM Limited; and the regional subsidiaries ARM, INC.; ARM KK; ARM Korea LTD.: ARM Taiwan; and ARM France SAS.