Echelon introduces Neuron® 5000 Processor
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Combined with inexpensive serial memory, the Neuron 5000 Processor provides a lower-cost, higher-performance LONWORKS solution than those based on previous-generation Neuron 3120® and Neuron 3150® chips. The Neuron 5000 Processor incorporates communication and control functions on a single chip, in both hardware and firmware, to facilitate the design of LONWORKS devices. Its flexible 5-pin communications port can be configured to interface with a wide variety of media transceivers — including twisted-pair, RF, IR, fiber-optics, and coaxial — at a wide range of data rates. The processor also works with TP/XF-1250 and industry standard EIA-485 transceivers.
The Neuron 5000 Processor includes three independent 8-bit logical processors to manage the physical MAC layer, the network, and the user application. These are called the Media-Access Control (MAC) processor, the network (NET) processor, and the application (APP) processor, respectively. At higher system clock rates, there is also a fourth processor to handle interrupts.
Cost-Effective Development Resources
The Mini FX Evaluation Kit and the NodeBuilder FX Development Tool let you develop LonWorks devices that use the Neuron 5000 Processor. The Mini FX Evaluation Kit is great for evaluating the technology and developing simple LonWorks devices, while the NodeBuilder FX Development Tool supports more sophisticated device development.
Features
- 3.3V operation
- Internal system clock scales up to 80 MHz, an effective increase of up to 16x over the previous generation
- Delivers lower-cost devices
- Serial interface for inexpensive external EEPROM and flash non-volatile memory devices
- Supports up to 254 network variables (NVs)
- User-programmable interrupts provide faster response to external events
- 7mm x 7mm 48-pin QFN package
- 5-pin network communications port with 3.3V drive and 5V-tolerant pins
- 12 I/O pins with 35 programmable standard I/O modes
- 64KB of RAM (44KB for application code and data) and 16KB of ROM on-chip memory
- Unique 48-bit Neuron ID in every device for network installation and management
- Easy upgrade path from previous-generation FTT-10A, Neuron 3120/3150 designs
- Complies with worldwide communications standards
- ISO/IEC 14908-1
- ANSI/CEA 709.1
- -40°C to +85°C operating temperature range