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Dear
Reader,
welcome to this month's edition of
MicroController Pros
Corporation's Embedded News Digest, your source
for microcontroller and embedded system news.
We send you our best wishes for a happy new year 2003 and look
forward to your continued patronage
in the new year.
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added over 60 new titles. Check out our web-site's
book selection on microcontrollers and
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This month's issue:
At a 300 MHz clock rate, the ADI's ADSP-TS101S offers the DSP
industry's best 1.8 GFLOPS (billion floating-point operations per second) and
2.4 GMACS (billion multiply accumulates per second) 16-bit fixed-point
performance as well as a 32-bit floating-point 1024 complex FFT time of 32.9
microseconds. The ADSP-TS101S offers a complete set of on-chip features such as
a large 6 Mbit internal memory, 14-channel zero-overhead DMA engine, and 1.8
Gbyte I/O throughput.
TigerSHARC processor's two types of integrated multiprocessing
support (link ports and a cluster bus) enable glue-less scalability and
unmatched I/O performance. The 32/64-bit cluster interface enables scaling of up
to eight devices into a DSP system without the need for bridge chips or
supporting logic. In turn, the link ports provide a high bandwidth
point-to-point multiprocessing connection that is complementary to the cluster
multiprocessing.
ADI's TigerSHARC processor is currently available and priced at $199. per
unit in 10,000 unit quantities and can be ordered under the part number
ADSP-TS101SAB2-100. The operating range is -40 C to 85 C Tcase.
ARM Holdings plc announced that more than 25 partners have signed
up to provide support and technical contributions toward the development of the
next generation of its advanced microcontroller bus architecture (AMBA), AMBA
3.0.
Companies including Agere, Cadence, Conexant, Infineon, LSI Logic, Motorola,
Philips Semiconductors, STMicrocroelectronics and Toshiba will contribute to the
upcoming version of the open standard, which will be available for public
release in Q1 2003.
Atmel announced the availability of a UHF RF wireless
on/off key transceiver chip set based on Atmel's AT86RF401 Smart RF micro
transmitter and its T5744 receiver. The micro transmitter's AVR-based core
enables it to be paired with the T5744 receiver and supervise 2-way on/off keyed
communications in the unlicensed ISM band (300MHz - 450MHz). With +6dB of output
power on the micro transmitter and -110dB of input sensitivity on the receiver,
a high performance, low-cost, 2-way RF wireless system can be realized. These
features make this chip set ideally suited for low-cost, low-data rate, 2-way
remote sensing applications, such as temperature, pressure, and motion, as well
as remote control applications, like home appliance and lighting, energy
management and monitoring, and security systems.
The AT86RF401 Smart RF micro transmitter contains an AVR
microcomputer with 2KB of Flash program memory and 128B of EEPROM data memory.
The integrated PLL-based RF transmitter is intricately linked to the AVR
core. This places many key RF parameters, including VCO tuning, output power,
and carrier modulation, under software control.
The chip set is available now in TSSOP20 (TX) and SO20/SSO20 (RX)
packages. Chip set pricing starts at $3.23 per pair @ 10,000 units.
An evaluation kit featuring a fully operational system including a receiver
board and transmitter board, samples of the AT86RF401 and T5744 chip set, and
the necessary tools to enable the development of a 2-way RF wireless system is
available now. The kit can be ordered by contacting any Atmel distributor.
Reference part number ATAK4015744U/E, where the U suffix indicates a 315MHz
system and the E suffix indicates a 433.92MHz system. The kit sells for $279.
Did you think Embedded Systems are by principle more secure than
general purpose computers? Well, it seems that at least some embedded system
programmers are no better than their colleagues at Microsoft and treat security
as an afterthought.
Security Experts demonstrated significant security holes in
Embedded Systems during the 19th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. An HP
LAN network printer running the Java based ChaiVM software could be reconfigured
so that it send all printed documents or documents from selected persons to an
email address even through a firewall. (www.phenoelit.de/hp/)
CISCO network routers can be reconfigured or significantly loaded
down with buffer overflow exploits (www.phenoelit.de/ultimaratio).
Fairchild Semiconductor's ACE1502 integrates an ACEx family core
(similar instruction set to National Semi's COP8 family) with 2KB of code
EEPROM, 64 bytes each of SRAM and data EEPROM, an on-chip clock generator, and
an I/O port with high current (±7mA) on each of the I/O pins. The device is
specified for an operating voltage of 1.8V to 3.6V. Available in eight-lead and
14-lead configurations in SOIC and TSSOP packages, the chip does in-circuit
programming without requiring a higher programming voltage. It also has a
brownout reset function and 32-level low-voltage detection.
This one escaped us in November: Early November Fujitsu announced
the introduction of its new FR60Lite series of microcontrollers. Designed to
consume less power, the new series is the latest addition to the FR family of
32-bit RISC microcontrollers. The first two FR60Lite products (the MB91F233 and
MB91232L) both come with embedded LCD controllers and support the same
high-speed 33 MHz operation as their predecessors, but in a smaller package.
By optimizing the clock-driving circuitry, power consumption of the CPU core has
been slashed to 1 mA per MHz, a 40% reduction compared to the existing
microcontrollers based on the 32-bit RISC CPU core.
Power-supply voltage: 2.4 to 3.6 V (min. 2.2 V in RTC mode); I/O: 3.0 to 5.5 V;
(A/D converter & D/A converter I/O: 3.0 to 3.6 V)
Clock rate: 2.1 to 33.6 MHz. Max power-supply current:MB91F233: 80 mA; MB91232L:
50 mA. Onboard memory:MB91F233: 192 KB ROM, 16 KB RAM; MB91232L: 256 KB flash
memory, 16 KB RAM. LCD controllers: 4COM, 32SEG; A/D converter: 10-bit (4
channels x 2 units); D/A converter: 8-bit (2 channels); Clock output; Real time
clock; UART; Multiple timer functions; Low-power modes: Sleep, step, clock mode.
Packaging: 120-pin low-profile quad flat package
The new H8S/2674R has an on-chip 32KB SRAM and a hardware
multiply-accumulate (MAC) unit that enables the MCU to run DSP-type software
applications up to three times faster than other 33MHz H8S chips without
hardware MACs. Using the MAC, the H8S/2674R running at 33MHz executes a
16x16-bit multiplication operation in only 120 nanoseconds.
The H8S/2674R peripheral functions include: a DMA controller; data transfer
controller (DTC); 6-channel 16-bit timer pulse unit; programmable pulse
generator; watchdog timer; 12-channel 10-bit A-to-D converter; 4-channel 8-bit
DAC; clock pulse generator with phase-locked-loop; 3-channel serial
communication interface with IrDA and serial bus capabilities; and up to 115 I/O
lines. For reduced system power dissipation, the H8S/2674R offers six power down
modes,
Hitachi is offering a low-cost Evaluation Design Operating System Kit (EDOSK),
available for $199 through Hitachi distributors, which includes an H8S/2674R
development board with 4 MB of on-board flash and 8 MB of SDRAM memory, an
Ethernet interface, boot loader software stored in boot flash, plus operating
system support from several vendors. uClinux support for the H8S/2674R is
offered by Arizona Cooperative Power.
In addition to all the already earlier supported AVR derivatives,
this new version of the IAR Embedded Workbench includes support both for the new
ATmega8535, ATmega32, ATmega162 and ATmega169 derivatives and for the Atmel JTAG
ICE, which is completely integrated into the IAR Embedded Workbench. The IAR
Embedded Workbench includes support for both the ICE 200 in-circuit emulator and
the JTAG ICE interface, a complete mid-range and high-end device support, and an
C/Embedded C++ compiler. A "Pro" version of the toolkit adds a graphical system
design tool, a system design test tool and an automatic design documentation
tool.
Microchip Technology Inc. introduced its new MPLAB
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) v6.10 software. Designed for use with
Microsoft Windows, the MPLAB IDE environment integrates various aspects of
development, including source code editing, project management, machine code
generation (from assembly or "C"), fast device simulation, device emulation, and
device programming. Features of the interface include a full-featured,
color-coded text editor; project manager with visual display; enhanced
source level debugging for "C"; a dynamic status bar to display processor
condition; and context sensitive, interactive on-line help.
The MPLAB IDE software is available at no cost and is
downloadable from Microchip's Web site at
www.microchip.com/1010/pline/tools/picmicro/devenv/mplabi/index.htm.
Motorola introduced three new pin-compatible devices in its HCS12
microcontroller family: HC9S12A64, HC9S12D64 and HC9S12DJ64. All 3 devices have
the following common feature set: 25 MHz HCS12 core (40 ns minimum instruction
cycle); 64K bytes Flash memory
1K bytes EEPROM (byte-erasable); 4K bytes of RAM; 16-channel, 10-bit ADC;
8-channel, 16-bit timer with capture and compare; 4-channel, 16-bit or 8-channel
8-bit pulse width modulator (PWM); One synchronous serial peripheral interfaces
(SPI); Two asynchronous serial communication interfaces (SCI); One I2C
communication port (IIC); Low electromagnetic emissions and RF noise
susceptibility.
The HC9S12D64 includes a CAN2.0A interface and the HC9S12DJ64 a
One Byte Data Link Controller (BDLC) serial communication module for the J1850
vehicle communication protocol.
The HC9S12A64, HC9S12D64 and HC9S12DJ64 are available now in a
112-lead low-profile quad flat package (LQFP) or 80 LQFP. Suggested list prices
range from $7.00 to $8.30 (USD) for 1,000 or fewer pieces.
The reference design includes Software, Hardware Design,
Application Note and Training for Alarm Control Panel. Features: Internet
connectivity through a modem line; There are three alarm line inputs that may be
used to connect industrial standard alarm contacts. The alarm lines are designed
to recognize external manipulations, such as attempts to cut the wires or
shorten a line. The reference design is also engineered to enable connection to
several sensors and nodes in a home using a LIN (Local Interconnect Network)
bus.
Features include: MCU module with crystal and optional external memory; User
interface with Graphical LCD, Jog Dial and buttons; Alarm line inputs for
standard alarm contacts; LIN interface for networked sensor node; A temperature
sensor; Switched Alarm outputs; Modem for connection to a central office; Sample
application that demonstrates the functionality of the Alarm Control Panel
The Alarm Control Panel reference design software is available now for download
at no cost to registered users of Motorola’s semiconductor website. Go to
http://www.pressi.com/relink-log.html?url=http://www.motorola.com/mcu/;site=
CPU: 4 cycle 80C51 instruction set compatible core; Programmable
clock rate: DC/20MHz/40/60MHz; On-chip programmable PLL generates up to 60MHz
processor clock.
Memory Architecture: 65KB ROM; 32KB SRAM usable as data and/or packet
buffer memory. Non-multiplexed external memory interface; In-system programming
using external FLASH.
Networking and I/O: 10/100 Ethernet MAC with built-in Physical Layer, single
chip networking; IEEE 802.3 7-wire ENDEC interface. 32KB on-chip TX/RX packet
buffer memory shared with CPU. Half-duplex MAC operation. Hardware checksum
capability speeds network protocol processing. Full-duplex serial port. Four
8-bit digital I/O ports, bi-directional.
Firmware: On chip HTTPD server; TCP/IP network stack accessible by application
programs; ARP, IP, ICMP, UDP, TCP, DHCP, and BOOTP protocols implemented.
Integrated Peripherals: 7-bit A/D with programmable A/D clock rate; Internal
band-gap reference generator; Two I2C interfaces both programmable for master or
slave operation; Three 16-bit on-chip timers; Eight interrupt sources with three
priority levels; Full-Duplex UART.
Power Management: On-chip COP timer; Programmable power-fail detection/reset
with interrupt; 3.3V and 5V I/O operation; 1.8V CPU core operation; Power on/off
chip resources using power CONFIG register.
The first module in this family is the LMX9820 Serial Port
Module. The LMX9820 enables Bluetooth data connectivity via a UART serial port
to support applications such as access points, digital cameras, set-top boxes,
printers and scanners. Additional members of the Simply Blue family will be
introduced throughout 2003. All of National's Simply Blue products include an
embedded Bluetooth protocol stack, application-specific profiles and a
high-level command interpreter and are compliant with the Bluetooth V1.1
specification.
Simply Blue modules feature a small footprint of only 10.1 x 14.0 x 1.9
millimeters. They provide metal can shielding and radio front-end filtering for
effective immunity to close proximity radio noise that is a common issue in most
current portable wireless devices. The devices also include non-volatile FLASH
memory to support all Bluetooth wireless parameter storage needs, as well as
firmware upgrades in the field. The LMX9820 will be available in Q1 2003
for $15 in 10k quantities.
The COP8-REF-IA-01 reference design implements the functionality
of an Internet connected weather station. The board is connected to the Internet
via a dial-up modem. The COP8FLASH microcontroller based board measures
temperature, humidity, pressure and light intensity with its integrated 16
channel, 10-bit A/D and communicates this information via an Internet connection
to your PC running the supplied host software. The board also supports real-time
emulation and debugging of your Internet Application via the free COP8™
Development Platform featured on the included CD-ROM
The firmware is completely auto-generated by the Processor Expert™ (PE) code
generation tool. You can quickly and easily set the board's communication
settings (dial-up number, login information) to connect the board to the
Internet Service Provider of your choice. You make modifications to the code
using the online version of PE, which is part of National's free COP8 WEBENCH
online development environment. PC host software that connects to the reference
design is also provided. It is written in Java and provides a graphical display
of the remotely measured sensor information on your PC monitor. It supports
remote updating of the COP8FLASH microcontroller's firmware and reading and
writing of the controller's Virtual EEPROM data memory via the Internet.
The COP8-REF-IA board supports two modem options (modems not
included with kit): An external modem (standard PC type) connected to the
board's RS232 port, or an optional on-board modem module. The board features the
following components:
Socketed 68 pin PLCC COP8CDR FLASH microcontroller, with integrated 32k FLASH
program memory, 1k RAM, UART, 3x16-bit multifunction timers, dual oscillators,
power-on-reset/brownout, 16 channel 10-bit A/D with unique amplifier/filter
path, MICROWIRE/Plus™ synchronous serial interface and Virtual EERAM; Sensors
for temperature, humidity, light and pressure; 2x16 character alphanumeric LCD
display; Speaker; 4 push buttons to navigate firmware menus; 7 LEDs in H (dice)
formation; Interfaces and connectors for RS232 (external modem), emulator,
In-System-Programming, phone (optional on-board modem module); Socket for
optional on-board modem module; and access to all microcontroller I/Os via
on-board headers.
The COP8-REF-IA-01 Internet Access
Reference Design Kit is available from National Semiconductor's Web-store
http://www.national.com/store#COP8Microcontrollers
Similar to National Semi, Philips also announced a Bluetooth
Module, called "TrueBlue" . Philips claims their product to be "the first to
integrate embedded Flash along with all required Bluetooth functionality (baseband,
radio) into a single, ultra-compact package (9.5 x 11.5 x 1.7 mm)". Well that's
only true if you consider National's package of 10.1x14.0x1.9 to NOT be
"ultra compact".
The BGB201 module combines baseband functionality with radio
functionality in a single integrated module. The baseband of the BGB201
Bluetooth module is a Blueberry baseband chip that integrates an ARM7
microcontroller with 224 kbyte of embedded flash memory and a variety of
interfaces, such as USB, UART, PCM, and GP I/Os on a single die. Additionally,
the BGB201 supports all existing Bluetooth data and voice packets and can be
connected with voice codecs already present in a device in order to enable voice
functions. In designs such as wireless headsets that have no voice codec, the
BGB201 works seamlessly with the newest 1.8 volt voice codec from Philips -- the
Blueberry Voice PCF87757 -- to create Philips’fully functional Bluetooth Voice
Solution.
The radio of the BGB201 features all critical RF parts, such as a near zero IF
transceiver chip, baluns, a TX/RX switch and a bandpass filter. With the BGB201,
the only external parts required for total Bluetooth functionality are an
external clock source and the antenna.
The ST9 family now supports the CAN 2.0B active protocol thanks
to the introduction of four new devices. The ST92F150JDV1 includes 128Kbyte of
single-voltage Flash, on-chip emulated EEPROM, two bxCAN (basic extended)
interfaces and one J1850 BDLC interface. The ST92F250 includes 256Kbyte of Flash
and one bxCAN. The ST92F150CR1 and ST92F150CV1 each have one bxCAN cell with
128Kbyte of Flash. The controllers also have a large range of communications
peripherals. These include one or two UARTs, one serial peripheral interface,
and one or two I2C interfaces. The controllers also have advanced timing
functions such as a watchdog timer and 16-bit timers with enhanced PWM
capabilities. Analogue data acquisition is available through a 16-channel 10-bit
ADC.
Packages: TQFP64 (with pins on 0.8mm pitch) and a TQFP100
(with pins on 0.5mm pitch), resulting in a 14x14mm package for reduced board
space.
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