Product of the Week: Infineon Technology’s PSoC 4100S Max

By Embedded Computing Design Staff

March 20, 2023

Programmable SoCs provide flexibility, determinism, and reprogrammable capabilities for wide range of applications where device customization and conditions regularly fluctuate. Applications like industrial control and home automation are examples of two environments where the ability to configure and make devices smarter for monitoring purposes is a must.

The PSoC 4100S Max from Infineon Technologies is designed for the aforementioned applications as it employs a reconfigurable platform architecture for programmable embedded system controllers. The combination of programmable and reconfigurable analog and digital blocks enable application versatility of the device architecture and increased high performance capabilities.

Part of the PSoC 4 platform architecture, the PSoC 4100S Max is compatible with PSoC 4 platform members to further the development of new applications and designs.

Infineon’s PSoC 4100S Max in Action

The programmable SoC solution is composed of a 32-bit MCU subsystem featuring a 48-MHz Arm Cortex-M0+ CPU with single-cycle multiply and 16-channel DMA controller. The solution also combines a microcontroller, standard communication and timing peripherals, a capacitive sensing system, programmable continuous-time analog blocks, and programmable connectivity.

The PSoC 4100S Max provides users with up to 384 KB of flash with a Read Accelerator, up to 32 KB of SRAM, and up to 84 programmable GPIO pins that can be used for sensing, analog, or digital functionality. For serial communication the solution is equipped with a CAN-FD and five independent run-time reconfigurable serial communication blocks (SCBs) with re-configurable I²C, SPI, or UART functionality.

The dual fifth-generation CAPSENSE blocks are a recently developed feature on the PSoC 4100S Max, providing HMI and touch sensing support. With capacitive sensing, the solution features a multi-sensing converter (MSC), liquid tolerance, Infineon-supplied software middleware, automatic hardware tuning (SmartSense), two MSC converters, and autonomous channel scanning without the need for CPU assistance.

Additionally, the solution provides an I²S master transmitter for embedded audio solutions, LCD segment drive capability on GPIOs, and cryptographic accelerator with support for AES, SHA, TRNG, PRNG, and CRC cryptographic functions.

Below is a breakdown of the aforementioned features based on the programmable blocks:

Programmable Analog Blocks

One 12-bit, 1-Msps SAR ADC
Two op-amps configurable as programmable gain amplifiers (PGAs), comparators (CMPs), etc.
Two low-power comparators
Two MSC (Multi-Sense Converter) blocks with next-generation CAPSENSE technology

Programmable Digital Blocks

Eight 16-bit timer/counter/pulse-width modulator (TCPWM) blocks
Five serial communication blocks (SCBs) that are configurable as I²C, SPI, or UART
Segment LCD
Two I²S Mater channels

Getting Started with Infineon’s PSoC 4100S Max

To get started with the PSoC4100S Max, the ModusToolbox software provides an extensive stack of multi-platform tools and software libraries, including board support packages (BSPs), peripheral driver library (PDL), and the CAPSENSE middleware. ModusToolbox 3.0 software can be downloaded from the Infineon Developer Center. The installation tool package is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS, with steps outlined in the ModusToolbox Installation Guide.