December 2003 Embedded News Digest
 

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Dear Reader,

we hope you had a good holiday season. Our best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year.

Welcome to the December 2003 edition of  MicroController Pros Corporation's Embedded News Digest, your source for microcontroller and embedded system news.

 

  • New interactive Programming Tutorials: C Programming, Java Programming, PIC Flowcode Flowchart Programming.

    The C and Java tutorials start from very basic principles of programming and take you step-by-step up to advanced programming concepts. If you complete all exercises and assignments of the programming tutorials you will gain the C/Java programming skills equivalent to taking a 15 credit university module in C/Java programming. The CD-ROM contains a complete Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that is specifically designed for educational purposes, as well as a complete C/Java compiler.

    PIC Flowcode Flowchart Programming allows you to design complex Microchip PIC based robotics and control systems by simply drawing a flow chart of your desired program in a matter of minutes even without any prior programming skills.


  • Please help us to spread the word about this free microcontroller news source.

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This month's issue:

ARM: New ARM9E Family Core Provides Unrivalled Low-Power Performance

Atmel: Microcontroller with MP3 Decoder and Multiple Mass Storage Device Interfaces

electronicaUSA and Embedded Systems Conference 2004

Microchip: New Low Pincount MCUs

Microchip: New PIC16 Family

Microchip: New PIC18 Family for Motor Control

New Design Kits for Motorola HC08AP,GP,GT,GR and GZ Microcontrollers

Philips: LIN I/O Slave Expander and I2C Master Selector

Renesas: 32-bit Controller with CAN

Renesas Releases SH7720 32-Bit RISC Microprocessor With On-chip SSL Accelerator

Renesas: H8S/2114F 16-Bit Keyboard and Mouse Controller
Sharp: Secure Contactless Microcontroller

Silicon Laboratories Completes Acquisition of Cygnal

TI: New Multi-Media OMAP Controller in 90nm


New ARM9E Family Core Provides Unrivalled Low-Power Performance

The ARM968E-S core has a low latency AMBA™ AHB-lite bus interface, and separate core and DMA clocking for low power idle mode operation. The ARM968E-S core integrates these benefits in a size that is 20 percent smaller than the ARM966E-S™ core and gives power savings of at least 10 percent.

The ARM968E-S core introduces a dedicated Direct Memory Access (DMA) port with tightly coupled memories (TCM) support. These enhanced benefits improve the efficiency of packet processing and data throughput, increasing the communications capacity of devices based on the new core. The DMA capability is particularly suited to communications devices such as 802.11 clients, Firewire or SCSI interfaces, but also applies to areas like audio where streams of data need to be processed.


Atmel: Microcontroller with MP3 Decoder and Multiple Mass Storage Device Interfaces

Atmel announced the general market introduction of the AT89C51SND1, a fully integrated standalone hardwired MPEGI/II Layer-3 decoder with C51 microcontroller core handling dataflow control and MP3-player control. The AT89C51SND1 is a highly integrated 64-Kbyte Flash microcontroller and merges on a single chip an embedded MP3 decoder, host communications (serial, parallel, USB ports), a dual IDE / ATAPI interface, and a multimedia card interface. Music can be played from DataFlash®, Nand Flash, SmartMedia®, MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital™, CompactFlash®, MicroDrive®, HDD and CD/DVD.

QFP80 (1.4 mm), CABGA81 (9 x 9 mm) packages and die form are available for the AT89C51SND1; all products are available in industrial temperature range.
Production volumes are available now. Pricing for 10,000-unit quantity per year is $9.00 for the AT89C51SND1; $7.00 for the AT83SND1 (ROM version) and $6.50 for the AT80C51SND1 (ROMless version).


electronicaUSA and Embedded Systems Conference 2004

The Embedded Systems Conference will this year be held for the first time together with the electronicaUSA on March 29-April1st 2004 in the Moscone Center, San Francisco. See  http://www.esconline.com/electronicaUSA/overview/event_glance.htm for scheduled conference sessions.


Microchip: New Low Pincount MCUs

Microchip announced three new PIC Flash 8-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) in low pin-count 8- and 14-pin packages. The PIC16F684, PIC16F688 and PIC12F683 MCUs offer designers up to 7,168 bytes of Flash program memory and several peripheral options with integrated nanoWatt technology.

Standard analog peripherals on the three new PIC devices include up to 8 channels of 10-bit A/D and up to 2 comparators. The PIC12F683 comes with Microchip’s standard Capture/Compare/PWM module, and the PIC16F688 features a EUSART peripheral that will support standard RS232/485-type communications as well as the LIN protocol.

The new “enhanced” low pincount PIC MCUs offer additional power-management features such as software-selectable clock speed, software-controlled BOR, ultra-low-power wakeup on change, a lower-power Real Time Clock timer and an extended Watchdog Timer.


Microchip: New PIC16 Family

Microchip also announced a new PIC16F family that delivers fault-redundant clocking and the ability to shut the system down reliably. The new PIC16F737/747/767/777 devices also feature three enhanced nanoWatt Technology modes that allow total control of system power consumption. The devices have three Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) modules for 3-phase motor control, a 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and a Real Time Clock.

The new PIC16F737/747/767/777  have 4K and 8K words of standard Flash program memory and delivers up to 5 MIPS performance at 20MHz, 368 bytes of RAM and a Master Synchronous Serial Port module. Additional nanoWatt Technology features on these devices for power management include: an on-chip multi-frequency oscillator operating at up to 8MHz (with fast startup), flexible clock switching, 2-speed startup from reset, a fail-safe clock monitor, and a low-current programmable watchdog timer for safety critical applications. Serial interfaces include a USART module, SPI™ and I2C™.

The PIC16F737/747/767/777 devices are offered in 28- and 44-pin QFN, SOIC, SDIP, SSOP, PDIP and TQFP packages, and samples and volume production are available now.


Microchip: New PIC18 Family for Motor Control

Microchip also announced the new 40-pin PIC18F4331/4431 and 28-pin PIC18F2331/2431 microcontrollers (MCUs), which provide a complete solution for  precise and energy-efficient operation in motor control applications through advanced analog and digital feedback, and the new three-phase complimentary Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) control system.

Key to the performance and flexibility of the PIC18Fxx31 family are three new modules specifically designed for advanced motion and power control applications. The power control module has a three-phase PWM structure; the motion feedback module includes a quadrature encoder interface; the third module consists of a high-speed Analog to Digital Converter (ADC), which operates at 200ksps and can be synchronized with the PWM.

Other  features of the PIC18Fxx31 devices include: up to eight PWM channels with 14-bit resolution, center alignment, programmable dead-time and two external fault-protection inputs; two Capture/Compare/PWM modules; an Internal RC Oscillator with eight selectable frequencies ranging from 8MHz to 31.25KHz; four general-purpose Timers; a Clock Monitor for fail-safe operation; an Enhanced USART supporting RS485, RS232 and the LIN protocol; 256 Bytes of on-board, high-endurance data EEPROM; up to 10 MIPS performance at 40MHz; a 16-level Programmable Low Voltage Detection module; and nanoWatt Technology features that provide enhanced power-management capabilities.


New Design Kits for Motorola HC08AP,GP,GT,GR and GZ Microcontrollers

Softec has released new Design Kits for MC68HC908AP, MC68HC908GP/GT, MC68HC908GZ in 64QFP package, and MC68HC908GR/GZ in 32QFP package, which provide users with everything needed to quick start HC08 projects. The kits include an in-circuit debugger/programmer (ICD) that connects through a MONO8 compatible interface, Metrowerks CodeWarrior IDE, Editor, Assembler and C-compiler, and a full-featured evaluation board specific to the respective HC08 derivatives supported. The ICD connects to a PC via a USB interface that also provides power to the unit, eliminating the need for an extra power supply.


Philips: LIN I/O Slave Expander and I2C Master Selector

The new UJA1023 device supports up to eight identical LIN I/O slave nodes on a single LIN-bus (and even thirty with additional wiring effort). Philips’ LIN I/O slave expander can be used to control up to eight LIN applications within the vehicle without the need for a microcontroller or other external components.

The UJA1023 features an integrated LIN transceiver, an on-chip oscillator, eight configurable I/O’s and automatic bit rate synchronization to any bit rate between 1kbit/s and 20kbit/s. The outputs of the device can be configured as high and/or low side driver, cyclic or PWM driver. The inputs feature an eight channel multiplexed 8-bit AD-converter, a configurable edge capture function and have wake-up capability.

The new PCA9541 allows two separate I˛C masters to have access to the same slave device without having to communicate with each other, thereby simplifying design complexity and cost by using a single device to replace the multiple chips previously used for this application.

Three versions of the PCA9541 are offered. The PCA9541/01 can be used for server applications and requires no set up to start communicating with the downstream I˛C slave devices on Bus 0. The PCA9541/02 version is suitable for hot swap in telecom applications where there is potential traffic on the I˛C bus; it does not connect Bus 0 until the bus is idle. The PCA9541/03 is for general-purpose applications and defaults to off with neither Bus 0 or Bus 1 connected at start up.


Renesas: 32-bit Controller with CAN

Renesas Technology announced the H8SX/1527F 32-bit CISC microcontroller with on-chip flash memory, featuring a controller compatible with the CAN in-vehicle LAN standard and a 40 MHz maximum operating frequency. The H8SX/1527F is the first product for in-vehicle control systems in the H8SX Family of microcontrollers incorporating an H8SX 32-bit CISC CPU core.

The H8SX CPU core an internal 32bit bus architecture offers 40 MIPS (Dhrystone 1.1) performance at a 40 MHz maximum operating frequency. The processing buswidth and operating frequency have both been doubled compared with Renesas Technology's previous H8S Family 16-bit CISC microcontroller products for in-vehicle control systems (which have a 20 MHz maximum operating frequency), offering an approximately four-fold overall increase in processing power (Renesas Technology comparison). The instruction set has been extended beyond that of the current H8S Family with the addition of a wide range of new instructions and addressing mode enhancements. This enables current H8S Family programs to be used while also providing programming flexibility.

The H8SX/1527F includes a controller compatible with the CAN high-speed, high-reliability in-vehicle LAN standard, as well as multifunction timers, a 4 channel DMAC (Direct Memory Access Controller), a 3 channel Synchronous Serial Communication Unit, and a dual 10-bit A/D with 8 input channels each. The 256-Kbyte on-chip flash memory can be accessed in one cycle. The device has 12kB RAM and comes in a 100pin QFP package.


Renesas Releases SH7720 32-Bit RISC Microprocessor With On-chip SSL Accelerator

Renesas  announced the SH7720 32-bit SuperH RISC microprocessor, incorporating an SSL (secure socket layer) hardware accelerator, plus a comprehensive set of peripheral functions, including a color LCD controller and USB interface.

The SH7720 incorporates a hardware accelerator for 3DES processing and RSA computations, which impose an especially heavy software processing load on the CPU during SSL processing. A full range of on-chip peripheral functions is provided, including a color LCD controller, USB Host and Node function, and a CompactFlash(CF) memory card interface, MultiMediaCard (MMC) interface, I2C bus interface, PCMCIA interface and IrDA interface (Ver. 1.0 support).


Renesas: H8S/2114F 16-Bit Keyboard and Mouse Controller

Renesas  announced the H8S/2114F 16-bit single-chip microcontroller with a 16-bit H8S/2000 CPU core and one megabyte of on-chip flash memory, for notebook PC keyboard and power control.

The H8S/2114F employs a 0.18-micron process and incorporates 1-Mbyte high-density flash memory. This allows storage of system BIOS programs that could not be stored in previous models. The chip includes a key-scan function and PS/2 function for mouse connection, necessary for keyboard controller use. An LPC interface for PC chip set connection is also provided, enabling system BIOS programs stored in the H8S/2114F to be rewritten from the PC chip set, and so simplifying development of a notebook PC system. An I2C bus interface enables PC power control.


Sharp: Secure Contactless Microcontroller

Sharp Microelectronics announced the release of a secure contactless microcontroller specifically designed for e-passport and identity applications. Sharp developed this contactless microcontroller to support the increased demand for e-passport and identity programs being pursued by many countries worldwide. Based on a 0.18µm 5 Metal Flash memory embedded process, the 16-bit microcontroller, product number SM4128, is offered in versions with a total non-volatile FLASH memory of 1MB or 512KB and 8kB each of ROM and RAM memory.

The chip is designed to meet high security standards and is fully compliant with Common Criteria EAL 4+ certification requirements. It comes equipped with an extended ISO 7816-4 command set, fitting both the ICAO e-passport recommendations and the GSC-IS 2.1. US Government Smart Card specifications. The high-speed contactless interface sustains a low-error data rate of 424 Kbps using the ISO 14443 type B standard.


Silicon Laboratories Completes Acquisition of Cygnal

Silicon Laboratories Inc. (Nasdaq: SLAB) announced it has completed the acquisition of privately held Cygnal Integrated Products, an Austin-based design company of analog-intensive, highly integrated 8-bit microcontrollers (MCUs).

"This acquisition allows Silicon Laboratories to address the intersection between the 8-bit MCU market and the high-performance analog market, which we believe is a multi-billion dollar market opportunity," said Dan Artusi, president and chief operating officer of Silicon Laboratories. "The strong analog-intensive, mixed-signal nature of the MCU product family complements our existing product lines while broadening the applications we serve.


TI: New Multi-Media OMAP Controller in 90nm

Texas Instruments unveiled its newest applications processor for cell phones and mobile devices.  Developed using  90 nanometer (nm) process technology, the OMAP1710 device offers up to 40 percent improvement in performance for a variety of mobile applications, while consuming as little as half the power of current TI application processors. The OMAP1710 processor leverages the same software environment as all OMAP chips, enabling application developers and cell phone designers to completely reuse and build upon existing software.

The OMAP1710 processor engines include an ARM processor, a TI DSP engine, as well as a range of software and hardware accelerators for video encode and decode, still picture compression, Java and security.


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