March 2004 Embedded News Digest
 

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Dear Reader,

welcome to the March 2004 edition of  MicroController Pros Corporation's Embedded News Digest, your source for microcontroller and embedded system news.

 

We intentionally delayed sending out this newsletter for a few days to be able to include all the news from the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco that ended yesterday (04/01).

 

Atmel AVR: 100Mps Ethernet Starter Kit
Microchip: PIC Ethernet board, PIC CAN Development Kit, PIC CAN prototype board, PIC solderless breadboard, PIC RS485 board

Fujitsu: In-System Debugger and Starter Kits for FR and 16LX Series

Test & Measurement: PC based 150MHz storage scope, 50MSa/s logic analyzer, Analog waveform and digital pattern generator at unbelievably low prices.

Electronics Tutorials: Analog Electronics, Digital Electronics, Electronic Projects, Electronic Circuits & Components, Robotics


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This month's issue:

Atmel: New ATMega AVR microcontroller with CAN

Atmel: ARM7/ Floating-Point-DSP Dual Processor Combo

Elan: OTP Microcontroller with LCD Driver

Fujitsu: New Mobile Media Processors

NEC: New 8-bit and 32-bit Motor Control Micros

Renesas: Twelve new 20-pin Micros in R8C/Tiny Series

Sharp: New BlueStreak Micros with Ethernet, USB Capability

TI: Free MSP430 "4-30" Seminar in 100 Cities Worldwide

TI: New DSP Increases Performance by 33%

Toshiba: MPEG1/2/4 Reference Design

ZiLog: New Z8 Encore XP Family


Atmel: New ATMega AVR microcontroller with CAN

The new AT90CAN128 integrates in a single chip the features of the existing mega128 and the already proven V2.0A/V2.0B CAN controller used in the Atmel CANary microcontroller family. The CAN controller can handle 15 independent message objects, programmable on-the-fly.

On-chip features include: 16 MIPS AVR RISC-engine, 128-Kbyte Flash program memory, 4-Kbyte RAM and 4-Kbyte on-chip EEPROM, 16-bit timers with enhanced Pulse Width Modulation capabilities, a 10-bit/8-channel A/D converter and several serial interfaces. A wide operating voltage range (2.7V-5.5V) plus five low-power management modes optimize the application's power consumption.

In-Application Programming capability, via CAN, UART or SPI, allows remote programming and field upgrades. Atmel offers a library of In-Application Programming routines to customers wanting to build their own bootloaders, reducing overall development time and thus time-to-market.

AT90CAN128 is pin-to-pin compatible with the mega128. It is available in TQFP64 and QFN64 packages and in industrial temperature. Samples are available now. Production volumes are expected in June 2004. Pricing for 10,000-unit quantity per year is $7.50.


Atmel: ARM7/ Floating-Point-DSP Dual Processor Combo

Atmel introduced its AT572D740 Diopsis, a dual processor system-on-chip, with an ARM7, peripherals and a complex domain, 40-bit precision, very large instruction word, floating point DSP. The high-end processor executes 15 operations per cycle.

The DSP has a 16K by 40-bit Dual port data memories, and 256 pairs of 40-bit registers. At 100 MHz, mAgic VLIW DSP throughput is 1.5 billion operations per second (GOPS), one billion of which are floating-point. The ARM7 executes at 50MHz. Peripherals includes two SPI serial ports, two USARTS, a timer counter, watchdog, parallel I/O port (PIO), peripheral data controller, 8 ADC and 8 DAC interfaces, clock generator and interrupt controller. Power dissipation is 750 mW per GFLOP.

Pricing and Availability - The Diopsis AT572D740 is available now in 352-ball PBGA package and is priced at $30 in quantities of 1000 (industrial temperature range).


Elan: OTP Microcontroller with LCD Driver

The new EM78P468N includes a 4 backplane by 32 segments LCD driver that can be programmed for 1/4, 1/3 and 1/2 duty cycles and 1/2 and 1/3 Vcc bias voltages. The device comes in a 64pin QFP package and features 4k OTP program memory, 128 bytes RAM, dual clock, 4 8-bit timers, watchdog and low voltage detect. Operating voltage ranges from 2.2V...5.5V


Fujitsu: New Mobile Media Processors

The new Mobile Media Processors MB86V00 and MB86V01, designed for cellular phones, PDAs and other handheld devices, incorporate MPEG-4 and JPEG hardware encoding and decoding functionality. The devices include two-dimensional and three-dimensional (2D/3D) graphics accelerators with a 24bpp display controller and interface with two LCDs, enabling users to display multiple images simultaneously on two separate screens. Two camera modules (up to two Mega-pixels) can be attached to the MMPs simultaneously via a YUV interface, and can be activated at alternating intervals.

Other features include the ability to display three windows, and to mix multiple visual images using alpha blending (transparency). The devices also provide hardware support for image scaling and rotation, and also include BitBlt and texture-mapping features.

When the internal clock operates at 13.5MHz, and the MPEG-4 codec (QCIF@15fps) is functioning, the device consumes just 13mW.The MB86V00 device incorporates 64Mbits of SDRAM as a system-in-package.

Samples are available at $45 each starting in April.


NEC: New 8-bit and 32-bit Motor Control Micros

NEC introduced two series of single-chip microcontrollers (MCUs) for inverter-control applications, the uPD78F0714 and V850ES/IK1.

The uPD78F0714 operates at 20 MHz and is the latest addition to the company's 78K0™ family of 8-bit MCUs. The device offers 32 kilobytes (K) embedded flash memory and 1K random access memory (RAM), along with dedicated 3-phase inverter functions and an on-chip debug (OCD) function that allows developers to design and debug products in circuit via a serial connection.

The V850ES/IK1 is comprised of three products: the uPD70F3329 with128K of flash memory and 6K RAM, the uPD703327 with 64K of mask read-only memory (ROM) and 4K RAM, and the uPD703329 with 128K of mask ROM and 6K of RAM. They also include dedicated peripherals for 3-phase inverter control.

Both the uPD78F0714 and V850ES/IK1 series come with a number of safety features necessary for motor-control applications. These include an emergency shutdown pin for the inverter timer outputs to protect the motor and inverter, and a power on clear (POC) and a low voltage interrupt (LVI) for a controlled system shutdown and recovery in the event of power failure.

The V850ES/IK1 and uPD78F0714 MCUs are scheduled to start sampling in May and June 2004 respectively. For orders in 10,000-unit quantities, pricing is expected to start at US$17 for the V850ES/IK1 controller with flash (uPD70F3329); US$6 for the V850ES/IK1 controller with 128K of mask ROM (uPD703329); US$5 for the V850ES/IK1 controller with 64K of mask ROM (uPD703327); and US$4 for the uPD78F0714 controller. Mass production is scheduled to start in November 2004


Renesas: Twelve new 20-pin Micros in R8C/Tiny Series

Renesas announced the four 20-pin package version groups of R8C/14, R8C/15, R8C/16, and R8C/17, as third-phase products in the R8C/Tiny Series of low-pin-count, small-package, 16-bit microcontrollers with on-chip flash memory. There are three models in each group, for a total of 12 models.

Features of these new groups are summarized below.
20 pin SSOP package with a 6.5 mm × 4.4 mm body size. Maximum operating frequency of 20 MHz at a power supply voltage of 3 V or above. Peripheral functions include an output compare function, power-on reset function, and voltage detection circuit.

New functions not provided in previous R8C/Tiny Series models are a synchronous serial I/O function with a chip select facility (SSU) and an I2C bus interface. The SSU function is provided in the R8C/14 Group and R8C/15 Group, and the I2C bus interface in the R8C/16 Group and R8C/17 Group.

All groups include an 8 MHz-standard high-speed ring oscillator. This oscillator enables programmable frequency adjustment to be carried out by rewriting an internal register, and the inclusion of a correction circuit provides frequency precision of ±3% or better.

The R8C/15 Group and R8C/17 Group include two 1-Kbyte data flash blocks that can be erased a minimum of 10,000 times. 16, 12, or 8-Kbyte on-chip flash memory for software storage is available in each group.

Differences between the R8C/14, R8C/15, R8C/16, and R8C/17 Groups are as follows.
    (1) R8C/14: Synchronous Serial Interface (SSU) function, no data flash
    (2) R8C/15: SSU function and data flash
    (3) R8C/16: I2C bus interface SSU, no data flash
    (4) R8C/17: I2C bus interface SSU and data flash


Sharp: New BlueStreak Micros with Ethernet, USB Capability

Sharp’s new ARM7 based BlueStreak controllers include the 32-bit LH79524, and the 16/32-bit LH79525, both of which run at a clock speed of 77.4MHz

The BlueStreak LH79524/LH79525 offer peripherals on-chip such as a 10/100 BaseT Ethernet MAC, USB Device, touch screen controller, a programmable LCD controller and external DMA. The programmable LCD controller supports up to 65,536 colors in the LH79524, and 4,096 colors in the LH79525, with both SoCs allowing direct interface to STN, Color STN, TFT, and Sharp’s Advanced-TFT Panels.

The BlueStreak LH79524/LH79525 also include peripherals, such as 16KB of on-chip SRAM, I2C, I2S, Counter/Timers, SDRAM Controller, and Watchdog Timer. Both devices also support all types of Flash memory.

Sharp’s BlueStreak LH79524/LH79525 fully static design, power management unit, low voltage operation (1.8 V Core, 1.8 V or 3.3 V I/O), on-chip PLL, and low power RISC core also provide high performance at a low current draw.

BlueStreak LH79524/LH79525 production is expected in the fourth quarter of 2004. Pricing for the BlueStreak LH79524/79525 will be under $12 in units of 10,000.


TI: Free MSP430 "4-30" Seminar in 100 Cities Worldwide

Texas Instruments announced the "4-30 Day," a free two-hour lunch-and-learn event to be held at 100 locations worldwide beginning April 30. The 2004 event, hosted by TI distributors worldwide, shows designers first-hand how they can save development time and power in their embedded applications by making the change to the MSP430 16-bit RISC microcontroller unit (MCU) family. For more information and to register for 4-30 Day please see www.ti.com/sc04062.

MSP430 experts will demonstrate how the MCU family enables system designers to simultaneously interface to analog signals, sensors and digital components while maintaining unmatched low power. Attendees will also see how MSP430 development tools and other resources can help them easily start using the devices.


TI: New DSP Increases Performance by 33%

Texas Instruments announced a 300 MHz TMS320C6713 digital signal processor (DSP) that offers a 33 percent performance increase over the existing 225 MHz C6713 processor. This new DSP provides 1800 MFLOPS (Million Floating-Point Operations Per Second).

The new 300 MHz C6713 DSP is package and pin-out compatible with the 225 MHz C6713 DSP processor, making drop-in replacement straightforward and simple. Also, application code can be reused since the new C6713 is code compatible with the TMS320C6711 and other C6713 devices already deployed in the market.

Housed in a 256-pin, 27mm2 Ball Grid Array (BGA), the C6713-300 DSP is sampling now with volume production in Q2 of 2004. Pricing is $34.29 (10Ku).


Toshiba: MPEG1/2/4 Reference Design

Toshiba announced its third TX System RISC platform for residential home gateway applications. Developed in collaboration with Sigma Designs and designated WVM49RX, the new reference design combines the Toshiba TMPR4925 or TMPR4926 MIPS-based™ RISC processor with the Sigma Designs EM8485 MPEG-1/-2/-4 decoder chip and supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoding for high-quality audio/video streaming. WVM49RX is targeted at client platforms and enables the rapid development of a low-cost media gateway, IP set-top box or video endpoint. Toshiba will make its reference design available to manufacturers seeking to reduce development costs and speed time-to-market starting in the second quarter of 2004.

The WVM49RX reference design kit is priced at US$3000 and features:

  • Toshiba 200 megahertz TMPR4925 or TMPR4926 64-bit RISC processor, which includes an integrated memory controller, a Peripheral Component Interconnect controller, a Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter, a timer, a serial peripheral interface and an Audio Codec '97. In addition, TMPR4926 incorporates a triple Data Encryption Standard engine.
  • Toshiba TC86C001FG "GOKU-S" companion chip, which supports the Inter-IC bus, Universal Serial Bus host, USB device and Integrated Drive Electronics Ultra DMA-66 interface.
  • Sigma Designs EM8485 MPEG-1/-2/-4 Decoder
  • MontaVista Software Inc. MontaVista Linux 3.0 operating system
  • PCI slot for WiFi, including a mini-PCI conversion board
  • Full-featured design kit complete with drivers, documentation, a development board and application demo software that enables further customization as desired
     

ZiLog: New Z8 Encore XP Family

Zilog introduced a new enhanced family of devices based on the eZ8 core, the Z8 Encore! XP family. The Z8F04xA/F02xA/F01xA feature 4k, 2k and 1k of FLASH program memory, respectively and RAM from 1kB to 256 bytes. In addition to all of the features of prior Z8 Encore! devices, the new family adds an integrated precision oscillator (5MHz/32kHz), temperature sensor, current sense amplifier, analog comparator and direct LED drive with current controlled outputs.


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