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This month's issue:

Microchip acquires PowerSmart, a maker of smart battery ICs for $54M.

This acquisition will position microchip in the market for battery chargers, fuel gauges

and other battery management ICs.

This is another step in Microchip's foray into the analog market. PowerSmart is a

spin-off of the battery maker Duracell, who authored the original smart battery

specification with Intel about 6 years ago.

Microchip Technology has enhanced its PICDEM 2 Demonstration Board with an

ICD port, LCD read-out, sounder and temperature sensor. For $99, designers

receive a demonstration tool with a 2 line x 16 character display LCD, an active

RS-232 port and on-board Serial EEPROM memory. A Pulse Width Modulated

(PWM) signal is sent directly to the Piezo sounder. All of the microcontroller port

pins are terminated at connector headers and there is a prototyping area.

However to make his or her own code modifications as needed, a user needs an

MPLAB In-Circuit Debugger 2.

The LIN hardware and software kit includes a series of boards and three PICmicro

microcontrollers. The small footprint PIC16C432 and PIC16C433 are used as slaves in

the LIN communication and feature on-board LIN transceivers and a PIC16F874 Flash

microcontroller serves as a master. All three microcontrollers are programmed with

firmware to provide LIN bus communication. The demonstration boards accept 18-,

28- and 40-pin DIP devices and feature a prototyping area, an on-board +12V

regulator and a jumper to disconnect the on-board RC oscillator. Additional

features include an RF stage for remote keyless entry (RKE) function, RS-232 interface

capability, In-Circuit Serial Programming technology for each individual

Flash module and a LIN-Bus master featuring an MCP2510 CAN-Bus interface.

Etron Technology recently successfully developed a four-in-one controller IC, the EL7301, integrating scaler,

analog-to-digital converter, phase-locked loop, and on-screen display into a single chip for use in 17-inch SXGA

TFT LCDs. In the third quarter the company plans to complete development of an integrated LCD

controller IC that also will add a timing controller (TCON) to support both 15 and 17-inch TFT LCDs.

In the first quarter of next year Etron plans to launch a new controller IC that will integrate a microcontroller unit

in addition to all the other functions.

Atmel Corporation announced the availability of a new RF data control transmitter family

that provides the industry's highest output power and smallest package (TSSOP8) for such an IC.

The innovative T575x series has been developed for RF low-cost data transmission systems at data rates

up to 32 kBaud. They can be used in both ASK (Amplitude Shift Keying) and FSK (Frequency Shift Keying)

systems. The transmitter ICs are well suited to be operated along with Atmel's PLL RF receivers T574x and T576x.

Pricing starts at US$ 0.99 (10 k).

Atmel announced the availability of its AVR® Microcontrollers in the chip-scale

Micro Lead-Frame (MLF) Package. The three different versions of the MLF package

that has been selected are the 5X5 mm 32-pad package, the 7X7 mm 44-pad package,

and the 9X9 mm 64-pad package.

Our comment:

Need small packages? Also check out National Semiconductor's COP8FLASH family.

They offer 28 pin and 44 pin Chip-scale packages.

The AT90SC6464C-USB is built around Atmel's AVR 8-bit RISC processor, with 64K Bytes of on-chip Flash memory

and 64K Bytes of EEPROM. Additionally, the AT90SC6464C-USB includes all the security features already built

into the AT90SC series, in particular a 16-bit RISC crypto-processor for efficient hardware accelerated execution

of highest-level encryption algorithms.

The 68HC908GT16 (GT16) and 68HC908GT8 (GT8), include an enhanced serial communications interface

(ESCI) that provides support for Local Interconnect Network (LIN) applications. LIN is a low-cost,

serial communications protocol for use in distributed networks in vehicles as well as radar detectors,

industrial and home lighting equipment, home appliances, and sensors. The devices offer 512 bytes RAM;

dual two-channel 16-bit timers, with programmable PWMs; 8 channel 8-bit A/D; synchronous serial

peripheral interface (SPI); up to 36 I/O; Timebase Module with auto wake-up from STOP mode;

44-lead quad flat package (QFP) or 42-pin shrink dual inline package (SDIP) types; operating

temperature range of -40 to +85 degrees Celsius; and a Low Voltage Inhibit (LVI) with

selectable 3- and 5-volt trip points.

The 68HC908LJ12 MCU features 12K bytes of on-chip Flash memory as well as the following

Liquid Crystal Display Driver capability for direct connection to a LCD panel; 26 frontplane x

4 backplane configuration; 27 frontplane x 3 backplane configuration; 27 frontplane x 1 backplane

configuration; software programmable LCD contrast control Real Time Clock Module second, minute,

hour, day, day of week, month, year counters; automatic calendar with leap year adjustment;

100 Hz chronograph counter; alarm, and UART; Serial Peripheral Interface; 10-Bit Analog-to-Digital

Converter six (6) channels; 32 MHz phase-locked loop

NEC released the uPD789835 Subseries, which features an operating supply voltage of 1.8 to 3.6 V

and consumes only 15 uA (typical) while driving an LCD at 3.6 V on a 32.768 kHz subsystem clock.

A freely configurable 16-level volume 3-octave scale audio sound generator, A/D converter,

serial interface, and large capacity internal memory (up to 60 KB of ROM and 3264 bytes of RAM) are

other features. The on-chip LCD driver can drive a panel of up to 2304 dots and features selectable

segment/common output combinations of 48 x 48, 64 x 32, 80 x 16, and 80 x 8. A booster circuit for LCD

display is also provided. With 16 boost levels settable (up to 5.2 V), this circuit enables flexible display

shading selection. The uPD789835 Subseries comes in either a 20 mm x 20 mm 144-pin QFP package

or as a 144-pin bare chip. A flash version, the uPD78F9835, is also available.

The stack is qualified on a reference design according to the Bluetooth specification v1.1

using the M16C/62 microcontroller device from Mitsubishi.

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