When it comes to professional gaming, the performance and precision of your gaming devices can make or break the outcome. In designing its new Savu gaming mouse and Isku gaming keyboard, ROCCAT Studios selected 32-bit microcontrollers from NXP Semiconductors N.V. to enable advanced, high-precision design features that have generated tremendous excitement and anticipation within the worldwide gaming community. Showcased this week at CeBIT 2012, the new ROCCAT gaming devices are powered by NXP's LPC1343 and LPC1752 microcontrollers, which offer high speeds, robust serial interfaces and superior USB, and are based on the ARM Cortex-M3 processor.

"Both Savu and Isku, our flagship gaming products for 2012, combine the world's smartest and most advanced gaming engineering with jaw-dropping design features," said Rene Korte, ROCCAT founder and CEO. "NXP's high-performance Cortex-M3 microcontrollers deliver the high-performance system capabilities we needed to implement the device functions to unleash the gaming legend in you."

Inside the "Tough New King of Optical Mice" The ROCCAT Savu Mid-Size Hybrid Gaming Mouse uses the NXP LPC1343 microcontroller with a 72-MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processor. The microcontroller communicates with Savu's unique 4000 dpi optical sensor via an SPI interface, helping to deliver speed and control for highly accurate game commands. With 8 KB of SRAM, 32 KB of Flash, 26 GPIOs, 4 timers, and a 10-bit ADC, the LPC1343 controls and reacts to the gaming mouse's five buttons and ultra-precise 2D scroll wheel, which supports up to 12 macro functions. User input is sent every millisecond, via the LPC1343 microcontroller's USB 2.0 Full-Speed USB PHY.

Savu's massively customizable features include the ability to illuminate its rear light bar in one of 16.8 million colors to enhance the atmosphere of gaming sessions. Its fully configurable RGB LED uses the LPC1343 microcontroller's PWM to choose one of 16 pre-defined colors or define a custom color, and activate color cycling and "breathing" functions.

Acting Faster Instead of Hunting for Keys The ROCCAT Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard uses the 120-MHz LPC1752 microcontroller, which provides an ultra-fast 1-ms response to user inputs via its USB 2.0-certified Full-Speed USB interface, supporting a 1000-Hz polling rate. The LPC1752 microcontroller has 16 KB SRAM, 64 KB Flash, and 52 GPIOs to support Isku's 123 blue-illuminated keys with 6 brightness levels, 36 macro keys, 8 configurable media and hotkeys, and 5 profile-status LEDs.

"ROCCAT Studios is defining breathtaking new features for gaming devices, and we're very pleased that NXP Cortex-M3 is its microcontroller of choice for high-precision game play," said Jan Jaap Bezemer, director of marketing, microcontroller business line, NXP Semiconductors. "From gaming to industrial applications, our broad portfolio of 32-bit ARM microcontrollers offer a rich set of options for high-performance Human Interface Devices that are transforming the way we interact with the digital world today."

The ROCCAT Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard is available immediately. The ROCCAT Savu Mid-Size Hybrid Gaming Mouse will be available in May 2012.