The NXP’s MCX A14 and MCX A15 series in MCXA microcontrollers, built on the Arm® Cortex®-M33 core and capable of operating at up to 96MHz, are designed to serve a broad spectrum of applications through their high integration and extensive analog capabilities.
There are other series in NXP MCX microcontrollers, I have covered them in my previous blog.
These MCUs feature low-power operation with advanced peripherals, including timers for three complementary PWM pairs with dead band insertion and a 4Msps 12-bit ADC enhanced with hardware windowing and averaging.
Their innovative power architecture promotes efficient I/O utilization and power efficiency in a compact design.
Supported by the MCUXpresso Developer Experience, these devices streamline the development of embedded systems, making them ideal for developers seeking versatile, high-performance microcontrollers.
Block Diagram of NXP MCXA Microcontroller
From the below given block diagram you can clearly see all the features these A14 and A15 MCXA Microcontroller series supports.
It has up to 128KB of Flash and 32KB of RAM, Various interfaces like Low Power I2C, up to three UARTs, two Low power SPI, one I3C which is backward compatible to I2C. One Full speed USB Device interface is also provided.
It has various timers like wakeup timer, general purpose 32bit timers, Watchdog timer, microTick Timer, OS Event timer, etc.
Advanced PWM controller is available which can help in build various motor control solutions.
It also has Analog capability like 12Bit high speed ADC, Analog comparator, inbuilt temperature sensor, DAC.
MCU Comes mainly in three packages QFN32, QFN48 and LQFP64.
The main difference between the two MCXA microcontroller family is the MCU clock frequency, A14 runs at Max 48Mhz and A15 can clock up to 96Mhz.
| Family | Speed | Flash | SRAM | UART | SPI | 12C | I3C | USB | Packages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A15X | 96 MHz | up to 128 KB | up to 32 KB w ECC | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Y | QFN32 QFN48 LQFP64 |
| A14X | 48 MHz | up to 128 KB | up to 32 KB w ECC | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Y | QFN32 QFN48 LQFP64 |
For more details , please check MCXA14/15 Datasheet and the reference manual.
If you want to start exploring this MCXA Microcontroller, you can buy FRDM MCXA153 Development Board.
The board comes with inbuilt MCU link for out of the box MCU flashing and debugging. For Evaluation, RGB LED is available to test GPIO, PWM, two keys inputs are available, MCU link can be used for UART interface as well.
P3T1755DPJ I3C/I2C temp sensor is available on board.
Second USB-C port helps you test the USB-FS interface. All the other interfaces like I2C, SPI, DAC, ADC are available on other headers where other boards and shields could be connected directly or via jumper wires.
The Development board costs only 15$ (shipment and customs duty will ne extra obviously and will depends on the country you are in).
An easy to follow getting Started guide is provide by NXP, I would recommend to follow the same for setting up and testing your first piece of code.
That’s all I have to say about NXP’s MCXA Microcontrollers. I hope you found this blog interesting and learned something new today!
I my next blog on NXP MCXA Microcontroller, I will talk about MCU hardware aspects, key things you should be aware of, some of the limitations, which if you know before hand you can take the right decision for your application.
I am running an Embedded Design House, CAPUF Embedded Pvt. Ltd, located in Bangalore, India. We help companies build embedded products with our hardware and firmware design services.
We also help in design optimizations for power consumption, cost, mass manufacturing, and performance.
Additionally, we develop PCB testing jigs and provide cloud-based monitoring solutions.
We are looking for an NXP ARM general purpose microcontroller, where we need some on-chip non-volatile memory or eeprom to update and save parameters during run time of the main program / system. Our technical requirements: number of dedicated GPIOs – 45, Timers – 4, flash memory – min 512KB, CAN – 1, UART – 2, SPI – 1, PWM – 6, Non maskable hardware interrupt – 2, QFP package (64 to 100 pins) etc. with longevity for at least next ten years. Please suggest one from NXP’s LPC series.