Century do Brasil Selects Philips Microcontroller for Set Top Box
3/1/2004 - Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) announced its LPC922 8-bit microcontroller (MCU) has been selected by Century do Brasil for use in its new generation of set-top box designs. The LPC922 MCU is used to control all remote functions for the front panel display for the set top box satellite receivers. With integrated flash memory, cost-effective price point and broad tools support, the LPC922 is an ideal choice for embedded applications that need programming flexibility in an easy-to-use MCU.
By using the LPC922, Century was able to save costly production steps by assembling the boards and programming the MCU at the end of the assembly process. This programming flexibility was enabled by the on-chip flash memory, which allows for in-system programming (ISP). The LPC922 offers 8 Kbytes on-chip flash memory for ISP and in-application programming (IAP), which means engineers can program the MCU in the system and while the application is running. Century’s engineers saved time with no system rejects by programming the MCU after placing it on the board. Further cost-saving benefits were realized with the easy migration of the existing software with very few modifications required.
"Philips has the right combination of peripherals, technical support and price in the LPC922 microcontroller," said Heron Hurpia, application engineer, Century. "By using the in-application programmability of the on-chip flash memory, we were able to quickly program the MCU after assembly which saved us several steps in the production process. The LPC922 was easy to use, and with the software and tools available for this popular architecture, it was very easy to migrate to this new device."
"The new 80C51-based products continue to evolve rapidly to satisfy customer demands, such as more flexibility, higher levels of integration, faster time-to-market, lower power consumption and smaller packages," said Joe Yu, strategic marketing manager, Microcontroller Product Line, Philips Semiconductors. "By working closely with customers such as Century, we can understand their challenges and requirements – and put the tools and people in place to support them."
Why The LPC922?
The LPC9xx family of microcontrollers is designed with broad support and advanced capabilities including:
- High industry familiarity with the established C51 core architecture used in the LPC900 family provides Century with a wide range of development tools to help minimize design costs and fulfill time-to-market requirements.
- The LPC900 family is easily adaptable to 5V-systems - an important role for maximizing software and hardware re-use of Century's set-top box expertise.
- Embedded flash memory features such as IAP and ISP that provide high-speed performance to benefit both application and line production requirements by eliminating external memory needs and minimizing costs for factory programming process.
- High level of integration with flexibility to select peripheral configuration such as with the I/Os N- 2 feature which allows the STB design to maintain the same application functions in a reduced pin count microcontroller. This provides Century with features including the Internal Clock Source, Flash IAP-Lite Mode and N-2 available I/O pins -- where N represents total LPC900 pins -- while reducing the number of external pins needed and thus reducing the cost of the design.
- Wide variety of pin-counts and packages available for LPC900 family, allowing Century to fulfill and match all custom requirements.
- Strong partnership program with LPC900 family family development tools suppliers providing low-cost and easy-to-use design tools.
About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of EUR 29 billion in 2003. It is a global leader in color television sets, lighting, electric shavers, medical diagnostic, imaging and patient monitoring, and one-chip TV products. Its 164,500 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics, domestic appliances, semiconductors, and medical systems. Philips is quoted on the NYSE (symbol: PHG), Amsterdam and other stock exchanges. News from Philips is located at www.semiconductors.philips.com.
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