NXP launches design competition

NEW DELHI, INDIA: NXP Semiconductors today announced the launch of the industry’s first Cortex – M0 design competition, the “LPC1100 Cortex- M0 DESIGN CHALLENGE”, to encourage and inspire India’s vast technical community to design and develop innovative embedded solutions.

This global design challenge that is open to students, embedded developers and entrepreneurs from all over India and the rest of the world, said a press release.

Microcontrollers are used in a myriad of applications, and are an essential building block of embedded systems. The applications that can be created are limited only to the creativity and innovative thinking of the designers to address the needs of consumers and the industry.

“This initiative from NXP Semiconductors is designed to boost the Indian Electronic System Design and Manufacturing Ecosystems by making available the latest Cortex-M0 processor-based 32-bit micro-controllers and tools, giving the Indian design community an opportunity to develop world-class products that can compete with global peers”, said Ashok Chandak, senior director, Global Sales and Marketing, NXP Semiconductors India.

He added that NXP was a leader in ARM 32-bit MCUs, and with the Cortex-M0 processor the company was offering the industry 32-bit performance at 8-bit MCU prices, significantly raising the bar on price performance.

“The Cortex-M0 processor is the smallest, lowest power, and most energy efficient processor available from ARM,” said Guru Ganesan, managing director of ARM India. “NXP Semiconductors is the first ARM partner to license the Cortex-M0 processor and launched its LPC1100 MCU family last November. We fully support this initiative which we believe will encourage, enable and inspire students and developers throughout India to create innovative and novel applications around the Cortex-M0 processor.”

This Design Challenge comes at a time when the Indian industry as a whole is gearing up to meet the need to reduce the hardware import bill by 2020, while the government of India and the state of Karnataka are promoting the development of the semiconductors ecosystem in India.

NXP Semiconductors would provide free LPCXpresso development tools to qualified contestants who apply to enter the “LPC1100 Cortex-M0 Design Challenge”, the release added.