Atmel announces a Floating Point Unit that is being designed for Atmel’s 32-bit AVR UC3 product family. This new technology will enable designers to replace a two chip microcontroller and DSP solution with just one Atmel microcontroller for applications in the automotive and industrial control markets.
A Floating Point Unit improves processing performance by allowing the MCU to perform arithmetic calculations on decimal numbers in fewer clock cycles with higher precision. This will benefit a wide range of applications; motor control algorithms can be improved to allow the motor to run more silently or consuming less energy, sensor data can be filtered or analyzed to suppress noise and capture more useful information, and audio data can be processed without loss of fidelity. The 32-bit AVR UC3 Floating Point Unit is compliant with the IEEE 754 standard. This ensures compatibility with a wide range of existing math libraries and application code.
The Floating Point Unit will be introduced in selected AVR UC3 family members targeting the automotive and industrial control. The first devices to arrive will include advanced analog modules, such as dual high-speed 12-bit ADCs, dual high-speed 12-bit DACs and intelligent motor control.
Wolfgang Patelay, Editor Print & Online 