AndesCore™ N968A: the Optimal Choice for Developers in Pursuit of High Performance and Low Power Consumption

【Taiwan HsinChu】As 32-bit MCU devices are sprouting in the consumer electronic market, suppliers keep pursuing higher integration and greater energy saving while speeding up the release of new products. Following this trend, Andes Technology Corporation, Asia’s first dedicated vendor of innovative 32-bit CPU IPs and associated SoC platforms, launches the AndesCore™ N968A IP core. This licensable solution is tailored for MCU applications that demand a combination of high performance and low power consumption. With its outstanding performance, the N968A has already been embedded in SoCs for high volume fields like touch panel control, three-phase motor control, mobile health devices, computer peripherals, white goods, personal care devices, handheld devices and wireless networking.  

The N968A delivers an impressive performance of 1.92 DMIPS/MHz with dynamic power consumption of only 31.7 uW/MHz. With the resulting power efficiency of 60.6 DMIPS/mW, the N968A provides significant benefits for developing low-power, high performance SoCs. By employing breakthrough technologies such as hardware configurability and the latest AndeStar™ V3 instruction set architecture, chip vendors get rich peripheral integration and superior efficiency while minimizing cost. Using Andes’ novel V3 architecture, the N968A achieves optimum system efficiency with minimum code size and power consumption. Moreover, the N968A features advanced power management capabilities and incorporates rich bus interface for either AHB or  AXI, meeting the control requirements of next-generation applications.

Dr. Charlie Su, Chief Technical Officer and Senior VP of R&D at Andes, states, “Whether using Flash or ROM the instruction memory on typical MCU-based chips often consumes at least twice the size of processor. Thus it is memory that typically dictates the size – and the cost – of MCU-based chips. The N968A dramatically reduces the instruction memory size and cost through higher code density, especially when compared to legacy 8- or 16-bit MCUs. By combining exceptional performance with very low power consumption, the N968A delivers excellent power efficiency, outperforming 8-bit MCUs by at least three times and offering more than 40% efficiency boost over the competing 32-bit MCUs. For chip designs which used to adopt 8 or 16-bit MCUs, the 32-bit N968A provides a seamlessly update and makes a great improvement in all aspects. Andes’ N968A is a must-have to create competitive products with low cost and high efficiency.”