Customisable processors

Digi International has released the NS9215 and NS9210, said to be first microprocessors to include flexible interface modules that provide different hardware interfaces based on the needs of the product or application.

FIMS reduce product design complexity and cost by cutting the number of electronic components.

The family can be customised for any set of I/O. The NS9215 and NS9210 processors integrate two independent high-speed controllers that are programmable as FIMS for a wide range of interfaces.

Different FIMs can be loaded from software when needed to provide specific interface capabilities.

Based on an ARM926EJ-S core capable of operating at speeds up to 150 MHz, they also provide enhanced security through an on-chip 256-bit AES accelerator. The integrated NIST-certified AES accelerator provides secure network communication with SSL/TLS and IPsec protocols.

The accelerator encrypts and decrypts data streams up to 10 times faster than a software-only solution and provides strong data privacy for any user information stored or transmitted by the processor.

Additionally, the family features Digi Dynamic Power Control, a set of hardware and software features for product designs that demand low power consumption and advanced power management.

The processors can be instructed to shut down or use a power-saving reduced speed mode while idle or waiting for input, and restart the processor when needed or to respond to incoming networking traffic.

The NS9215 also features 4 KB of I/D cache, 10/100 ethernet MAC, four high-speed UARTs, SPI, I²C, 4 PWMs or 10 timers, 12-bit ADC, a quadrature decoder, RTC with battery backup, up to 108 GPIOs and access to 2 FIMs.

FIM support is available now for SD/SDIO, CAN bus, 1-wire and additional UARTs. FIM support for USB low-speed device, parallel bus, I2S, and Wiegand interfaces is in development.