Nuvoton – M2003 – Cortex-M23 Upgrade for 8051 Designs

Nuvoton – M2003 – Cortex-M23: Since the company was founded in 2008 (as a spin-off from Winbond Electronics), Nuvoton has concentrated on the development of microcontrollers.

Starting with the 8051 MCUs, which had their roots in Winbond times (W77/W78), Nuvoton has developed modern 1T 8051 MCUs such as the N76 series.

In parallel, Nuvoton launched early microcontrollers with Arm Cortex-M core, first M0 and today also M23, M4 and M7 derivatives. The M2003 is based on a Cortex-M23 core offering a migration option from 8051 8-bit to Cortex-M23 32-bit.

Nuvoton – M2003 – Cortex M23 at a glance

The M2003 is currently available in 2 package options (TSSOP20 and QFN20). The Cortex-M23 core runs up to 24 MHz. The 32 kB Flash and 4 kB SRAM are sufficient for many applications previously realized with 8-bit MCUs.

An operating temperature range of -40 °C to +105 °C is supported for use in harsh environments. This is further underlined by 7 kV HBM and 4.4 k EFT ESD resistance.

The M2003 is suitable for both 3.3 V and 5 V designs, as it can be powered with an operating voltage in the range from 2.4 V to 5.5 V.

Improved peripherals compared to the NuMicro 1T 8051 series

The M2003 offers four 32-bit timers and two watchdog timers. In addition to the 2 UARTs (UART, RS-485 and IrDA mode) and I2C interface, the USCI interface can be configured as UART, SPI or I2C. The 8-channel 12-bit ADC runs at a sample rate of 500ksps and supports single, burst, single-cycle scan and continuous scan modes.

The M2003 also supports a 16-bit resolution on its 6 PWM channels.

The PWM unit runs at up to 24 MHz. 3 pairs with complementary output can be configured. A dead time with 12-bit resolution can be set which supports 2 compare values per period. For motor control applications, a break function is also integrated which can be triggered either via a PIN or by safety events (clock failure, brown-out, CPU lockup).

The 3 Enhanced Input Capture Timers (ECAP) work with three input channels and have a filter against noise on the front end and at the input ports. Compare-Match and a window capture mode are supported.

All details can be found in the Datasheet at Nuvoton.

M2003 pin compatibility with NuMicro 1T 8051 Series

As mentioned at the beginning, Nuvoton developed the M2003 series as an alternative to its own 1T 8051 microcontroller series

Pin compatibility with these 1T 8051 microcontrollers enables easy performance upgrades for designs that are already in volume production.

Today, many companies use 32-bit MCUs, such as the NuMicro series, already so upgrading classic 8-bit applications with the M2003 simplifies in-house software IP maintenance.

Nuvoton – M2003 – Cortex M23: Are you planning to upgrade an 8-bit application? Contact us directly or send us your inquiry here