Dear Reader,
welcome to the January 2004 edition of
MicroController Pros
Corporation's Embedded News Digest, your source for microcontroller and
embedded system news.
This month's issue:
ARM announced it has entered into an
agreement to acquire Triscend Corporation, a company specializing in
configurable system-on-chip (CSoC) devices and customizable microcontrollers (MCUs).
The completion of the acquisition is subject to the fulfillment of certain
conditions including approval by the shareholders of Triscend.
Founded in 1997, Triscend is a 41-person, privately-held,
venture capital-funded company based in Mountain View, Calif. The acquisition
will bring ARM customer-proven MCU platform designs and supporting tools,
enabling the company to deliver 32-bit microcontroller solutions to satisfy
increasing demand as engineers move to higher performance designs.
Holtek released three new microcontrollers, namely the
HT46R62, HT46R64 and HT46R65, which each contain 2K, 4K and 8K of internal OTP
memory and 88, 192 and 384 bytes of internal RAM memory respectively. All 3
devices feature an internal LCD driver for 19 x 4 (HT46R62), 32 x 4 (HT46R64)
and 40 x 4 (HT46R65 ) segments, respectively.
Internal features include a Real Time Clock, power down
function with wake-up options on all pins of Port A and a programmable Frequency
Divider function. A Buzzer Driver Output is also included which is able to
directly drive a piezo or similar type buzzer audio device. The Low Voltage
Reset and Low Voltage Detector internal functions provide additional protection
features in situations where low power supply voltages may occur. A 9- or 10-
bit resolution internal A/D converter and a PWM timer are additional features
the 3 devices have in common.
The HT46R62 is available in a 56-pin SSOP package type, while
the HT46R64 and HT46R65 devices are available in both 56-pin SSOP and 100-pin
QFP package types.
O’Neill Europe - a leading provider of high-quality sportswear
and sports gear - unveiled the result of a joint product development project
with Infineon: their first ‘wearable electronics’-product. Based on O’Neill’s
specifications, Infineon has developed a chip module suitable for integration
into a pioneering snowboard jacket. Adapted to withstand rough snowboarding
environments, functions such as “mobile telephony by Bluetooth” and “MP3 player”
are integrated into the sportswear. The outstanding innovation from O’Neill’s
2004/05 winter collection for the technologically clued-in snowboarder is named
“THE HUB”.
Woven into THE HUB snowboard jacket are electrically
conductive fabric tracks which connect the chip module to a fabric keyboard and
built-in speakers in the helmet. The chip module contains a full-featured MP3
player and a Bluetooth module via which the snowboarder can control a mobile
phone. If the snowboarder wants to make a phone call, the stereo system acts as
the headset. The microphone is integrated in the collar of the jacket.
Recent studies by the Venture Development Corporation predict worldwide sales
worth over 1 billion Euros for the “intelligent textile materials” market by
2007. Since presenting its technology Infineon has discussed firm projects with
more than 200 companies from the textile industry. In cooperation with the
Vorwerk Teppichwerke carpet plant in Hameln, Germany, Infineon is currently
working on an initial prototype of a “smart carpet”.
Unfortunately, the Infineon press release did not go into
details by when we can expect the next generation after the smart carpet, which
would be the "flying carpet". (Our apologies to Infineon, we simply couldn't
resist on that one) ;-)
The NS9775 was architected specifically to address the most
cost sensitive portion of the color laser printer market and contains a complete
set of the major functional components necessary to develop color printer or MFP
controllers. The core is a 32-bit ARM926EJ-S microprocessor operating at speeds
up to 200MHz. Featuring tandem, multi pass and monochrome video interfaces, the
NS9775 is the first processor to feature four independent JBIG decoders, greatly
increasing throughput performance for tandem and dual beam multi-pass laser
printers.
To help customers reduce the cost of controllers, the NS9775
also includes a broad array of industry standard interfaces such as 10/100BaseT
Ethernet, USB (host or device), IEEE 1284, PCI, serial ports, and a color LCD
controller. Featuring DSP instructions, a Java byte code accelerator and a
memory management unit (MMU)
The NetStream 2 Tandem Printer Controller reference design kit
provides a platform to develop printer and MFP controllers using the NS9775 and
dramatically reduces time to market for OEMs. The NetStream 2 reference design
kit includes the controller board, a 16/16PPM tandem color print engine, a
sample printer driver for Windows supplied by Software 2000, the NET+Works
development system for the NS9775, an optimized RTOS and controller firmware
library, a high-performance networking library, a detailed BOM, schematics,
documentation and support.
Oxford launched a dedicated FireWire audio controller IC based
on an ARM7TDMI core. Compatible with FireWire 400 (IEEE1394A) and FireWire 800
(IEEE1394B) connections, the OXFW970 chip provides eight digital audio output
channels. The OXFW970 uses the bandwidth and quality of service attributes of
FireWire to overcome the limitations of alternative USB multi-channel audio
solutions, thus enabling the creation of high quality surround sound systems.
The FireWire audio controller can receive and process 32-bit
audio data sampled at up to 48 kHz at a streaming speed of up to 100 MB/s.
FireWire's power carrying capability also means that the speaker configuration
does not require the use of external power supplies.
A highly integrated device in a 100-pin TQFP package, the
FireWire audio controller IC uses a combination of its on-board ARM7TDMI
processor and high performance buffer manager to implement the 1394 transaction
layer. Its link controller complies with IEEE1394-1995, 1394a and 1394b
specifications. The OXFW970 supports remote programming of 512 Kb of on-board
flash memory over the FireWire bus using firmware and flash programming
utilities supplied by Oxford Semiconductor. Integral UART and JTAG ports
facilitate debugging. The chip offers eight programmable GPIO pins for the
addition of application specific functionality.
Compared to conventional 0.18 μm EEPROM technology which today
achieves a typical cell size of 5 μm2, the cell size of Philips’ new
embedded EEPROM cell is only 1.2 μm2 – four times smaller than the
conventional EEPROM technology used in the industry.
Philips’ new byte-alterable EEPROM technology provides both
high density and low power consumption, while at the same time being fully
compatible with the company’s existing embedded Flash memory technology to allow
mixed Flash/EEPROM systems. Philips’ new CMOS18 EEPROM memory option is
available for design in now and is supported by all the company’s CMOS18 design
tools, including the provision of memory test facilities through a standard JTAG
interface.
The H8/38086F is the first Renesas microcontroller to
incorporate a 2 channel delta sigma type 14-bit A/D converter. At ±274 µV (typ.),
the nonlinear characteristic error with a 3.0 V full-scale range has been
improved in this A/D converter by a factor of approximately 30 compared with the
±7.3 mV (typ.) of a conventional successive approximation type A/D converter
with 10-bit resolution. The delta sigma A/D converter features an operating
voltage range of 2.2 V to 3.6 V and a conversion time of 64.1 to 1282 µs.
Peripheral functions such as a programmable gain amplifier and reference voltage
band-gap reference circuit are also provided, enabling highly accurate A/D
conversion to be achieved easily using only an H8/38086F.
Eight versatile power-down modes are also provided, enabling
low power consumption by selecting the mode best suited to device operation.
Power consumption is a low 900 µA (typ.) at 1.8 V/1 MHz operation, and ultra-low
current dissipation of 0.5 µA (typ.) can be achieved in watch mode, in which
only the watch function is active.
Other on-chip peripheral functions include 48 Kbytes Flash
memory, 2 Kbytes RAM, 2x USARTs, 16-bit output compare timer, 16-bit timer pulse
unit, 3 channel 10-bit successive approximation A/D, an LCD
controller/driver with a built-in 3 V constant-voltage circuit for display use,
a real-time clock, and an I2C bus.
Three packages are available - an 80-pin QFP, 80-pin TQFP, and
85-pin P-TFLGA.
Texas Instruments (TI) announced it is now shipping the
world's first 1 GHz digital signal processor (DSP), leveraging the 90 nanometer
(nm) process node. The new 90
nm process has also been applied to the existing TMS320C64xTM
720 MHz parts, enabling
customers to save more than half the price on these devices.
The TMS320C6414T, C6415T and C6416T DSPs at 1 GHz offer
outstanding performance, providing eight GigaMACs on 8-bit data for video and
imaging applications or four GigaMACs on the 16-bit data common to speech and
audio applications. For example, a single 1 GHz device can process eight
channels of MPEG-2 video transrating, real-time D1 (720x480) resolution or 55
channels of GSM Adaptive Multi Rate (AMR) speech coding in a wireless
infrastructure application.
The 1 GHz C6414T,
6415T and 6416T DSPs are sampling today. All three devices have 1 MB of on-chip
memory, and are differentiated by their various integrated peripherals.
Production pricing starts at $189 for the 1 GHz C6414T in 10k unit quantities,
which will be available in 4Q04. The 720 MHz versions of these devices will
also be available with up to a 50% price reduction, including the 90 nm C6415T
starting at $115 in 10k unit production quantities. For information on ordering
samples, please go to
www.ti.com/1ghzsamplingp. The 1 GHz devices will be demonstrated at
the TI Developer Conference in Houston on February 18-20, 2004; for more
information, please go to
www.ti.com/tidc04mr.
Available in six models, including learning and non-learning
versions, the Crimzon RC Bullet Reference Design Kit for Universal Remote
Control (URC) applications provides a turnkey reference design URC vendors can
use to manufacture branded universal remote controls.
The Crimzon(TM) RC Bullet Reference Design Kits feature both
learning and non-learning models with both three-in-one (Cable/Satellite,
DVD/VCR, and TV) and six-in-one feature sets (Cable, Satellite, Audio, TV, DVD,
VCR) for the North American and European marketplaces.
The reference design supports up to 600 IR codesets, providing
the ability for URC manufacturers to offer support for most manufacturers'
consumer entertainment equipment.
The new reference design superset includes complete
documentation and detailed schematics. URC vendors can take the reference design
direct to board layout, packaging, and manufacturing. The kit supports ZiLOG's
new Crimzon ZLx16300 and ZLx32300 OTP microcontroller product lines.
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