Atmel’s CAP is a microcontroller system-on-chip platform with fast local memory, a wide range of industry-standard peripherals and interfaces, and a Metal Programmable (MP) Block that allows the designer to add custom logic. By combining the performance, density and low power consumption of the fixed portion of the device with the flexibility of the MP Block, CAP enables application-specific products to be developed in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of standard-cell ASICs, but at a unit price close to that of standard cell devices. CAP also offers superior performance, smaller form factor and lower power consumption at a unit price significantly lower than an MCU-plus-FPGA combination for the same functionality.

The CAP products are supported by the AT91CAP7X-DK and AT91CAP9A-DK emulation boards that implement the fixed portion of the device as a microcontroller standard product (e.g. CAP7E), tightly coupled to a high-density FPGA that represents the MP Block.

• Risk is reduced since the ARM core and peripherals (over 70% of the design) are fully verified in silicon, the designer does not have to worry about any of the ARM design aspects; that work is already done.
• Design time is reduced since the SoC portion of the design is complete and the designer only has to focus on the portion of logic that would otherwise be in an FPGA. This logic is captured in the MP Block of the CAP device.
• CAP cycle time for place & route and prototype fabrication is extremely short. Place & route is limited to the metal layers of the MP block and the ROM personalization layer; everything else is fixed. This cuts the fab cycle time in half.
• CAP NRE cost is significantly lower than that for standard cell ASICs. The total design cost using CAP technology is decreased, thanks to the re-use of hardware/software functional blocks and the smaller number of masks.
• Low unit cost: In volume, CAP costs only slightly more than an equivalent standard cell ASIC, and much less than an MCU + FPGA combination for the same functionality.

TECHNICAL SPECS

• AT91CAP7S

  • ARM7TDMI @ 80 MHz

  • 250K/450K Gates of Metal Programmable User Logic

  • 160KB SRAM, (2) 4KB SRAM, 256KB ROM

  • USB 2.0 Device, SPI, (3) Timers, WDT, (2) USARTs, 8-CH 10-bit ADC, EBI Port

• AT91CAP7E

  • Dedicated FPGA Interface Logic in MP Block

  • Direct Access to Multi-layer AHB Bus

  • Easier than a traditional EBI/GPIO interface

  • 160K Bytes On Chip SRAM

  • Seamless Migration to CAP MP Block Implementation

  • Standard Microcontroller with Zero NRE

• AT91CAP9S

  • ARM926EJ-S @ 200 MHz

  • 250K/500K Gates of Metal Programmable User Logic

  • 16K/16K Cache, 32KB SRAM, (8) 512×72 SRAM, (10) 512×36 DPRAM, 32KB ROM

  • USB 2.0 Host and Device, 10/100 Ethernet, LCD Controller, Camera I/F, 4-CH DMA, 8-CH 10-bit ADC, EBI Port

INDUSTRIES SERVED

Automotive, Biometric, Consumer Products, Defense, Industrial, Healthcare, Networking, Security, Telecommunications