Based on the ARM®Architecture, the Encore!32 Series Microcontroller is a high-performance 32-bit Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) System-on-Chip (SoCs), designed specifically for the embedded market place.

The first implementations of the Encore!32TM Series run on the ARM922TTM core, up to 200MHz, with 8 K Instruction / 8 K Data Caches and a Memory Management Unit which supports operating systems including Symbian OS, Windows CE, Linux & Palm OS. There is 64 KB of embedded, zero wait state SRAM available to the core and a highly configurable memory controller addresses SRAM, ROM, Flash and standard PC100/133 SDRAM through 10 chipselects on the external bus. The Dual External Bus Interface has 24-bit address, 16-bit data lines, can work with SDRAM in 16 to 512 MB configurations and accepts external DMA support.

The LCD interface is directly compatible with popular LCD displays, in text or graphic modes. It supports interfacing to 4-bit or 8-bit data and 3 control bits. A 4-channel 10-bit Analog to Digital Convertor works at 10-bit resolution, 45 kHz maximum sample rate, in a successive-approximation architecture (incl. 4 sample FIFO).

Inherited from the Zatara range of secure transactions ASSP’s, the Encore!32 sports some fixed and some optional features, that make the device an ideal fit for applications like secure communications (home banking, confidential data transactions, …), and card readers (fidelity card, healthcare & medical card readers, parking systems, building access, home security, …). Among the fixed peripherals are the embedded boot ROM with external boot option, the FIPS-180-2 compliant SHA-1 Hash Generator and NIST 800-22 compliant True Random Number Generator.

As options (specific device derivatives), are the 2 SmartCard Interface Controllers or Magnetic Card Reader. This latter magstripe reader interfaces directly to the Magnetic Heads and supports simultaneous Three Track Reading (ISO 7811-3 and 7811-6 Compliant).

As icing on the cake, the broad range of communication peripherals include three UARTs  (1x 8-wire, 2x 4-wire interface and UART2 shared with IrDA encoder/decoder),  two dedicated SPI interfaces, and most of all, a USB 2.0-complaint, Full Speed On-the-Go (OTG) bus.

The Encore!32 Series Platform software package includes a Board Support Package (BSP) with custom scheduler supporting co-operative multitasking, memory management and interrupt processing, a FAT16 file system over CF, SD and USB, sample device drivers and the basic tool chain is built up around the GNU ARM GCC compiler version 4.1.0