The ARM Cortex?-M3 32-bit RISC processor is the first ARM processor based on the ARMv7-M architecture and has been specifically developed to provide a high-performance, low-cost platform for a broad range of applications? including? microcontrollers, automotive body systems, industrial control systems and wireless networking. The Cortex-M3 processor provides outstanding computational performance and exceptional system response to interrupts while meeting low cost requirements through small core footprint, industry leading code density enabling smaller memories, reduced pin count and low power consumption.

The central core of the Cortex-M3 processor, based on a 3-stage pipeline Harvard?bus?architecture, incorporates?advanced?features?including single cycle multiply and? hardware divide? to deliver an outstanding efficiency of 1.25 DMIPS/MHz. The Cortex-M3 processor also implements the new Thumb?-2 instruction set architecture, which when combined with features such as unaligned data storage and atomic bit manipulation delivers 32-bit performance at a cost equivalent to modern 8- and 16-bit devices.