August 26, 2019 by Luke James
The i.MX 7ULP from NXP enables ultra-low-power and secure, portable devices with multimedia features and other peripherals.
Consumers are increasingly demanding more from their devices. Better security with increased complexity and richer graphics alongside lower power consumption are just two examples.
Designed to address these requirements, the NXP i.MX 7ULP has been created to enable ultra-low-power and secure portable devices such as smart home controls, wearables, portable healthcare monitoring, and gaming devices.
The processor is based on Fully Depleted Silicon on Insulator (FD-SOI) technology.
The NXP i.MX 7ULP Processor. Image courtesy of NXP via mouser.co.uk.
The device features NXP's advanced implementation of the Arm-Cortex-A7 Core, the Arm-Cortex-M4 Core, as well as 2D and 3D GPUs. It is the Arm-Cortex-A7 and Arm-Cortex-A4 cores that allow the devices to run an advanced OS, Linux on the Cortex-A7 and an RTOS on the Cortex-M4.
Based on FD-SOI technology, the i.MX 7ULP family provides up to 32-bit LPDDR2 and LPDDR3 memory interface and several other interfaces for peripheral connection. These include WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, displays, and camera sensors, amongst others.
i.MX 7ULP devices provide 32kb of L1 cache instruction and data memory, 256kb of L2 cache, and 512kb of SRAM.
The A7 and A4 Arm-Cortex cores provide a suspended power consumption of only 50 microwatts in fully optimized configurations whilst low leakage and operating voltage scalability are achieved via transistor biasing.
The i.MX7ULPhas an industrial operating temperature range of −40°C to +105°C and a consumer operating temperature range of −0°C to +95°C.
The i.MX 7ULP is ideal in applications that require long battery life whilst also delivering in other areas, for example rich graphical displays.
NXP are primarily targeting the i.MX 7ULP family of processors towards the growing market of portable devices, both consumer and non-consumer devices, particularly those that are IoT-enabled, where prolonged battery life and low-power consumption are particularly important.
The i.MX 7ULP is a robust processor that is perfect for evolving portable devices and growing consumer demands for more powerful, higher-performing devices with reliable battery life.
With applications to smart-home controls, wearables, portable printers and scanners, gaming accessories, and portable healthcare monitoring, the NXP i.MX 7ULP is available for purchase now and can be used in conjunction with system-on-module (SOM) boards that form part of an i.MX 7ULP evaluation kit for out-of-the-box testing.
