TI gets its paws on Cortex M3 processors

US CHIPMAKER Texas Instruments (TI) has bought Luminary Micro, the market-leading supplier of ARM Cortex-M3-based 32-bit Multipoint Control Units (MCUs).

The acquisition will give TI Luminary Micro's Stellaris family of Cortex-M3 processors, which will boost the outfit's microcontroller catalogue.

TI said in a statement that it bought Luminary because it wanted more punch in the 32-bit MCU market and Luminary's ARM Cortex-M3 core presented it with a way to get there.

The Stellaris family also has 10/100 Ethernet MAC+PHY, CAN, USB On-The-Go, USB Host/Device, SSI/SPI, UARTs, I2S, and I2C capabilities.

Brian Crutcher, vice president of TI's Advanced Embedded Control (AEC) business said that combining Luminary Micro's design experience in Cortex-M3 processors with TI's low power MSP430 MCUs and C2000 real-time controllers now gives TI customers one MCU source for almost any software stack.

Texas Instruments didn't say how much it paid for the smaller company. µ