{"id":39314,"date":"2026-08-21T08:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/39314\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T08:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:20:11","slug":"nxp-mcx-c15-and-c16-low-cost-cortex-m23-mcus-target-iot-analog-and-motor-control-applications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/39314\/","title":{"rendered":"NXP MCX C15 and C16 low-cost Cortex-M23 MCUs target IoT, analog, and motor control applications"},"content":{"rendered":"

We recently noted that NXP expanded its MCX A series with the MCX A5 Cortex-M33 family<\/a>, integrating 10BASE-T1S Single Pair Ethernet, topology discovery, and PQC for industrial connectivity. However, it\u2019s not the only recent announcement from the company, as NXP also expanded the lower-cost MCX C series with the MCX C15 and MCX C16 (C1 family) Cortex-M23 MCUs designed for industrial IoT and analog applications. The new C1 family provides a straightforward migration path from LPC800<\/a>, LPC1100, and Kinetis MCUs, with full pin-to-pin compatibility with the newer MCX A Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These low-cost entry-level devices feature a 16-bit SAR ADC, a high-speed comparator with DAC, an internal OpAmp, and FlexPWM for motor and power control. They also include up to 64 KB of flash, 12 KB of SRAM, LPI\u00b2C, LPSPI, up to four UARTs, up to 45 GPIOs, multiple timers, a low-power timer, an RTC, and a watchdog, with an operating range of 1.71 to 3.6 V and -40\u00b0C to 125\u00b0C. The MCX C15 and C14 MCUs are suitable for industrial IoT devices, sensing and instrumentation, motor drives, power management, HVAC systems, smart appliances, lighting, and other cost-sensitive embedded applications.<\/p>\n

\"MCX<\/a><\/p>\n

NXP MCX C15 and MCX C16 series specifications:<\/p>\n

CPU Core<\/p>\n

Arm Cortex-M23 processor running at 72 MHz (MCX C16) or 48 MHz (MCX C15)
\nAchieves 153 CoreMark, operating at 2.13 CoreMark\/MHz.<\/p>\n

Memory<\/p>\n

12 KB (MCX C16) or 6 KB (MCX\u00a0C15) SRAM
\nFull SRAM retention is supported down to Deep Power Down mode
\nDMA (Direct Memory Access) controller<\/p>\n

Storage<\/p>\n

64 KB (MCXC162) or 32 KB (MCXC151, MCXC161) of single-bank program flash memory
\n16 KB of dedicated data flash memory
\nFlash memory features Error Correction Code (ECC) supporting single-bit correction and two-bit detection
\nIntegrated on-chip ROM bootloader<\/p>\n

Peripherals<\/p>\n

GPIO \u2013 Up to 45x GPIO pins<\/p>\n

Single-Cycle I\/O port access for fast pin toggling
\nIncludes up to four 20 mA high-drive I\/Os
\n50 MHz I\/O support on specific pins (P1_0, P1_1, and P1_2)
\nTotal GPIO count depends strictly on the package size: 43-45 GPIOs (48-pin packages), 29 GPIOs (32-pin packages), 23 GPIOs (24-pin packages), or 15 GPIOs (16-pin packages)<\/p>\n

Low-speed I\/Os<\/p>\n

1x low-power I\u00b2C (LPI\u00b2C)
\n1x low-power SPI (LPSPI)
\n3x\u00a0(MCX C15) or 4x (MCX C16) LPUART interfaces<\/p>\n

Analog peripherals<\/p>\n

1x FlexPWM module with three sub-modules to provide six complementary PWM outputs
\n16-bit successive approximation register (SAR) ADC supporting up to 18 channels;\u00a02.4 MSPS in 16-bit mode and 3 MSPS in 12-bit mode ADC speeds
\n1x high-speed comparator (CMP) utilizing an internal 8-bit DAC reference
\n1x operational amplifier (OpAmp) equipped with programmable gain (PGA)
\n1x integrated temperature sensor<\/p>\n

Clocks and Timers<\/p>\n

Internal free-running oscillators at 144 MHz, 12 MHz, and 16 kHz
\nUp to 2x 32-bit standard general-purpose asynchronous timers\/counters (CTimer)
\n1x Low-power timer, frequency measurement timer, real-time clock (RTC), and 2x windowed watchdog timers
\nExternal 32 kHz crystal oscillator (XTAL) support for the RTC and clock system<\/p>\n

Debugging \u2013 SWD (Serial Wire Debug) support
\nSecurity<\/p>\n

Device lifecycle management capabilities
\nIntegrated True Random Number Generator (TRNG)
\nImplicit-protected Flash Region (IFR) access control
\nHardware access control for both memory and debug interfaces<\/p>\n

Misc \u2013 Power-On Reset (POR), Low-Voltage Detect (LVD), and High-Voltage Detect (HVD) monitoring
\n\u00a0Power<\/p>\n

Operating voltage \u2013 1.7V to 3.6V
\nConsumption<\/p>\n

Active mode current draw of 33 \u00b5A\/MHz when executing from flash
\nDeep Sleep mode consumes 14 \u00b5A with a 15.89 \u00b5s wake-up time
\nPower Down mode consumes 2.91 \u03bcA with full SRAM retention and a 28.47 \u00b5s wake-up time
\nDeep Power Down mode consumes 320 nA with all SRAM off and a 301.06 \u00b5s wake-up time<\/p>\n

Package options<\/p>\n

48-pin LQFP (7 x 7 x 1.4 mm, 0.5 mm pitch)
\n48-pin H-PQFN (7 x 7 x 0.9 mm, 0.5 mm pitch)
\n32-pin H-PQFN (5 x 5 x 0.9 mm, 0.5 mm pitch)
\n24-pin and 16-pin H-PQFN options (slated for December 2026 availability)<\/p>\n

Temperature range \u2013 -40\u00b0C to 125\u00b0C ambient operating temperature<\/p>\n

\n\"MCX<\/a>MCX C15 series block diagram (Differences are marked in red)
\n\"MCX<\/a>MCX C15 series block diagram (Differences are marked in red)\n<\/p>\n

For evaluation and to speed up development, the company offers the FRDM-MCXC162 development board, which features the 72 MHz MCX C162 MCU (64 KB Flash, 12 KB SRAM) alongside an on-board MCU-Link debugger (via USB Type-C), and plenty of I\/Os exposed through Arduino, MikroBus, and PMOD headers.<\/p>\n

The board also includes an on-board NXP P3T1755DP I3C\/I2C digital temperature sensor (\u00b10.5 \u00b0C accuracy), an RGB user LED, and dedicated buttons for reset, ISP, and wake-up. NXP notes this is the first FRDM platform to use FSC-certified responsible packaging.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\"NXP<\/a>NXP FRDM-MCXC162 development board for MCX C15xC16x MCUs
\n\"FRDM-MCXC162<\/a>FRDM-MCXC162 development board block diagram\n<\/p>\n

On the software side, the MCX C15 and C16 are fully supported by the MCUXpresso software and tools<\/a>, which include the MCUXpresso SDK, IDE options (including a VS Code extension), and access to the Application Code Hub (ACH) for ready-to-use software examples.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve previously written about other low-cost 32-bit MCU designed to replace 8-bit, 16-bit, and Cortex-M0+ designs, including STMicroelectronics\u2019 STM32C0 family<\/a> (48 MHz M0+, 12-bit ADC) and Renesas\u2019 RA0E2<\/a> \/ RA2T1<\/a> Cortex-M23 MCUs. The new MCX C15 and C16 sit in the same industrial IoT\/appliance class, but add a 16-bit SAR ADC, an on-chip OpAmp, a comparator with DAC, and FlexPWM for motor and power control.<\/p>\n

The NXP MCX C15 and MCX C16 MCUs<\/a> are currently available with an estimated 16-week lead time. There are a total of 15 SKUs available at the time of writing, with different memory, package, and GPIO configurations, but for reference, the MCXC151VFM (32 KB flash, 6KB SRAM, H-PQFN32 package) sells for under 60 cents in quantities<\/a>, while the FRDM-MCXC162 development board goes for $15<\/a>. More information is available on the product page<\/a> and in the press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Debashis<\/p>\n

Debashis Das is a technical content writer and embedded engineer with over five years of experience in the industry. With expertise in Embedded C, PCB Design, and SEO optimization, he effectively blends difficult technical topics with clear communication<\/p>\n

Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies<\/a>, become a Patron<\/a> on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon<\/a> or Aliexpress<\/a>. We also use affiliate links in articles to earn commissions if you make a purchase after clicking on those links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We recently noted that NXP expanded its MCX A series with the MCX A5 Cortex-M33 family, integrating 10BASE-T1S…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[4944,25498,22590,6762,2784,25252,792,166],"class_list":["post-39314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nxp","tag-automation","tag-cortex-m23","tag-development-board","tag-industrial","tag-iot","tag-mcu","tag-motor-control","tag-nxp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}