NXP launches first MCX microcontrollers with dual power domains
NXP Semiconductor has cut the power consumption of its latest MCX microcontroller by a factor of three by using dual power domains for the first time.
The dual core MCX L series MCUs use an independent low power sensor management domain for smart sensor nodes, flow meters and other battery-constrained industrial and IoT devices.
The MCX L14x and L25x MCUs are the first families in the series with an ARM Cortex-M33 core running at 48Mhz in the L14x and 96MHz in the L25x. Both have a Cortex-M0+ core running at just 10MHz to operate the ultra-low-power always-on sense domain. Through this domain, peripherals can stay fully operational even when the real-time processor is in sleep mode, allowing for independent functionality and ensuring continuous data collection and processing. This helps to maximize battery life and optimize battery size with always-on sensing.
This provides power consumption as low as 24 µA/MHz on representative workloads, such as CoreMark execution from flash memory. The devices have seven low-power modes, enabling power consumption down to sub-µA in the deepest sleep modes.
The MCX L25x series can be coupled with NXP’s UBX100 sub-GHz transceiver for cloud data processing designs such as fault detection, presence detection, intrusion detection, operation analysis and more. The on-device low-power real-time domain allows data transmission through low-power WAN connectivity interfaces, such as sub-GHz radio, LoRa or Sigfox for battery-powered wireless monitoring devices.
Peripherals supports sensor interfacing, including the CE Metrology certification required for smart metering in Europe. The low-power domain allows metrology to run independently from the real-time domain, simplifying the deployment of CE Metrology certified software.
The NXP MCX L25x uses a 96MHz ARM Cortex-M33 and a 10MHz Cortex-M0+
The MCX L series also includes NXP’s EdgeLock security capabilities, including support for secure manufacturing, fast and secure boot, secure debug access and configuration. It also includes pre-provisioned device unique identity, public key cryptography acceleration to further improve power consumption and performance, as well as ARM’s TrustZone technology for the isolation of sensitive code such as cryptographic stacks or metrology software.
The MCX L series devices are supported by NXP’s FRDM development boards. These low cost, scalable boards are supported by the unified MCUXpresso Developer Experience, to provide a consistent, open-source friendly environment across MCX devices for flexible and rapid prototyping, with industry-standard headers providing easy access to the MCU’s I/Os. With the on-board MCU-Link debug probe and USB-C cable included, engineers can develop, debug and program with ease.
Common with the broader MCX portfolio, the FRDM boards are supported by the widely adopted MCUXpresso ecosystem, including the MCUXpresso SDK, which provides production-grade drivers and middleware available in a single, convenient package or via GitHub. Developers can choose to work with either MCUXpresso for Visual Studio Code or Eclipse-based MCUXpresso IDE from NXP, or with IDEs from IAR and Keil that also offer safety certification. Additional software and tools, such as those for device configuration, security and specialist applications, are complemented by a range of compatible middleware and tools from NXP’s partner ecosystem.
FRDM-compatible expansion boards from NXP and its partners are available at the Expansion Board Hub. NXP’s Application Code Hub provides access to a constantly growing and evolving range of GitHub-based software examples that can be easily searched and filtered either from a web browser or from within NXP IDEs. These examples range from simple, handy code snippets, through proof-of-concept demos, to full reference software packages.
The MCX L series is expected to begin sampling in 1H 2025, with general availability expected in 2H 2025.
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