Russian foundry creates new ASIC design using a Cortus APS core
08-06-2016 | By Paul Whytock
Russian semiconductor foundry Angstrem-T has developed an ASIC based on a Cortus APS 32bit microcontroller core. The development comes following a working relationship between the Russian foundry and Cortus, a company specialising in low power 32Bit processor IP.
Cortus licenses a range of low power, 32bit processor cores for smart devices including Internet of Things (IoT), smart cards, smart sensors and industrial control.
The APS range of processors are all 32bit RISC with out-of-order completion designed for running code in high-level languages. Two compatible processor families are available with one family designed to offer the smallest core size possible and the second family designed to prioritise code density and therefore minimise instruction memory size.
The APS processors were designed to execute high-level languages, most notably C and all cores interface to Cortus’ peripherals including Ethernet 10/100 MAC, USB 2.0 Device and USB 2.0 OTG. The company says they also share the simple vectored interrupt structure which ensures fast real-time interrupt response with low software overhead.
The APS tool chain and IDE (for C and C++) is available to licensees free of charge, and can be customised and branded for final customer use. Ports of various RTOS are available such as FreeRTOS, Micrium and muC/OSII, Micrium and muC/OSIII and TargetOS.
