Echelon Mini FX - Manual (Page 18)

Mini FX User's Guide 5
routines and your device application. At lower system clock rates, these interrupts run
in the same application processor (APP) as the device application.
Additional I/O Model Support
The Series 5000 chips include hardware support for the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)
and Serial Communication Interface (SCI) serial I/O models, which provide increased
performance for devices that use these interfaces. The UART on the Series 5000 chips
includes an increased FIFO (16 bytes), and supports software-configurable parity
generation and validation (odd, even, none) for the SCI model.
Overall, the Series 5000 chips support 35 I/O models, including all of the I/O models that
were previously only supported by the PL 3120, PL 3150, and PL 3170 Smart
Transceivers. These I/O models include the new Infrared Pattern, Magcard Bitstream,
SCI, and SPI models.
In addition, the Series 5000 chips support the Stretched Triac model, which is a new I/O
model that improves performance for triac devices used with reactive loads.
Increased Network Variable Support
The Series 5000 chips can support up to 254 static network variables and 127 network
variable aliases, subject to available system resources (for example, RAM and EEPROM)
and application requirements. All current Series 3100 chips with Neuron firmware
version 16 or better also support these increased network variable limits, subject to
available memory resources.
You must build the application with the NodeBuilder FX tool to take advantage of these
increased network variable limits. If you use the Mini FX Application, your device
application is limited to 32 network variables.
Smaller Layout
The Series 5000 chips feature a more compact design using a 7 mm by 7 mm 48-pin quad
flat no leads (QFN) packaging and 3.3V operation (I/O pins are 5V-tolerant)
Backwards Compatibility for Device Applications
The Series 5000 chips are compatible with device applications written for 3150 and 3120
Neuron Chips and Smart Transceivers. You can use the Mini kit to port your Series
3100 application to a Series 5000 chip. To do this, you open the Mini kit application and
verify that the existing application can be built using Mini FX Application. If the build is
successful, create a hardware template for your device based on the Series 5000 chip, and
then re-build the device application using the new hardware template. See Selecting the
Hardware Template in Chapter 4 and, Appendix B, Creating and Editing Hardware
Templates See in Chapter 4 for more information on using the Hardware Template
Editor.
Notes:
The Neuron firmware contains the implementation of the ISO/IEC 14908-1 protocol
stack, the application scheduler, and many frequently used functions. The functions
included in the Neuron firmware vary between firmware versions and chip models;
therefore, when you rebuild an existing application for a FT 5000 Smart Transceiver, the
application may have a smaller or larger memory footprint, subject to the application’s
use of library functions.