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Dear Reader,
welcome to the August 2004 edition of MicroController
Pros Corporation's Embedded News Digest, your source for microcontroller and
embedded system news.
-
New product
additions at the MicroControllerShop:
Books: Expanded book selection on Microcontroller & Embedded System
Design specific topics.
Renesas:
In-System Programmer for Renesas M16C, M32C, M38xx and M7900
microcontrollers.
STMicroelectronics:
In-System Programmer for ST9 microcontrollers.
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This month's issue:
The first ARM Developer's Conference will be held from October
19th-21st at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. ARM
announced that executives from Broadcom Corporation, Dolby Laboratories, and the
Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA) will be keynote speakers. In addition to
the keynote speeches, attendees can also view over 100 demonstrations of the
latest technology from industry leaders, choose from over 180 classes, labs,
workshops and panels, and view and test proven solutions and services for a
broad range of applications from Partners in the ARM® Connected Community. Both
ARM and its Partners will also be introducing new ARM technology-based
offerings.
For more information and to register, see:
http://www.arm.com/developersconference
With the US and Europe scrambling to include electronically
stored biometric data in all passports, secure microcontrollers are very en
vogue. Atmel's latest addition to its secureAVR family has with 72kBytes EEPROM
enough memory to store two biometric data sets (face and fingerprint) required
by some countries.
Atmel’s AT90SC12872RCFT contact/contactless secure microcontroller 128 KBytes of
ROM program memory and 5 Kbytes of RAM. It shares the same common features with
other members of Atmel’s secureAVR™ family, including strong security
mechanisms, a power-analysis attack resistant DES/TripleDES engine as well as
Atmel’s new AdvX™ crypto accelerator for an optimized trade-off between
performance and power consumption. The AT90SC12872RCFT is a dual interface
contact (ISO7816) and contactless (ISO14443) smartcard chip: the communication
mode can be selected according to the application or the chip life phase. During
initial data entry, the contact interface may be conveniently used; later during
I.D. checking activities the contactless interface will typically be used.
Sampling will be available by the end of 2004. Atmel’s AT90SC12872RCFT will be
ready for bulk production by the beginning of 2005.
EM Microelectronic, an electronic systems company of the
Swatch Group, introduced the EM6607, a low-voltage, low-power RISC
microcontroller that features four high-current I/Os, the equivalent of 4kB ROM
and operates on a 32kHz crystal. The product is available in 24- and 28-pin
TSSOP and SO and in die form.
The EM6607 operates from a single 1.2V to 3.6V power supply. Power consumption
is a mere 1.8uA in active mode and 0.3uA in stand-by mode, when operating at
32kHz and a supply of 1.5V. The EM6607's four high current outputs can drive up
to 30mA at 3.0V with 500mV dropout voltage.
The EM6607 executes 72 basic instructions and its data size is 4-bit wide. Other
features include 4 inputs, 16 outputs (up to 4 high current), 2048 x 16 mask
ROM, 96 x 4 bit RAM, reset outputs, two 8-bit timers, two 4-bit BCD counters, a
3-bit event counter, a prescaler with 1 Hz resolution, a serial port, 12
interrupts, a watchdog timer and three software-programmable voltage level
detectors.
Freescale Semiconductor announced the addition of a 275 MHz
speed grade, a 15% performance increase, to the DSP56321, a member of the
popular DSP56xxx family, which has shipped more than 45 million units to date.
Microchip announced the first two PIC Flash microcontrollers
with an integrated KEELOQ® cryptographic peripheral. KEELOQ technology is based
on a Microchip proprietary, non-linear encryption algorithm that creates a
unique transmission on every use (rolling code), rendering code capture and
resend schemes useless. The new devices now feature this encryption algorithm as
an integrated hardware peripheral to the PIC microcontroller core.
Applications for the new PIC12F635 and PIC16F636 include: Remote Keyless Entry (RKE),
Passive Keyless Entry (PKE), and remote door locks and gate openers;
Authentication (property and identity); and Security Systems (remote sensors and
their intercommunication).
The two new PIC microcontrollers are available today for sampling and volume
production. In 10,000-unit quantities, the PIC12F635 is $1.08 each and the
PIC16F636 is $1.22 each. The PIC12F635 comes in 8-pin PDIP, SOIC and DFN-S, the
PIC16F636 in 14-pin PDIP, SOIC and TSSOP packages.
Renesas Technology Corp. announced the release of the SH7206,
the first product incorporating the new SH-2A CPU core from the SuperH™ family
of 32-bit RISC microcontrollers.
The SH-2A is a newly developed high-performance CPU with a superscalar
architecture that enables two instructions to execute simultaneously. It
provides substantially better real-time control performance than the earlier
SH-2 CPU core. Compared with the 104 MIPS (million instructions per second)
processing performance of the SH-2 (at 80 MHz operation), the SH-2A delivers 360
MIPS (at 200 MHz operation).
The SH-2A instruction set is upward compatible with the SH-2 and Renesas claims
that ROM code efficiency has been improved by about 75%, so programs written for
the SH-2 can be used unmodified or they can also be shrunk to about
three-quarters of their original size. In addition, The SH-2A has 15 internal
dedicated register banks and the response cycles have been reduced dramatically.
Also, 128 Kbytes of RAM access-able in a single clock cycle and 16 Kbytes of
cache memory are implemented on-chip. This further contributes to rapid program
execution.
The SH7206 incorporates two multifunction timer units that can be used to
control AC motors. In addition, it is equipped with 10-bit A/D converters and an
8-bit D/A converters; a serial communication interface with 16-stage FIFO; and
an I2C-bus interface. External buses are supported by means of bus state
controller settings. The SH7206 can connect directly to external RAM, SRAM,
burst ROM, multiplex I/O, etc.
SH7206 comes in a 176-pin LQFP (24 mm × 24 mm) package and costs 2100 Yen in
sample quantities.
Renesas announced the release of the M37544G2A, an 8-bit
microprocessor in the 7544 Group that incorporates what Renesas calls "QzROM".
From all we can figure QzROM is not really ROM program memory, but EPROM memory
that is programmed at the wafer level once customers submit their ROM codes.
Then the wafers are cut, packaged, tested and shipped, a process that from
receipt of ROM code until shipment should take just 7 days according to Renesas,
whereby the cost of QzROM devices should be similar to that of mask-ROM devices.
As with all OTPs, QzROM includes code read protection and devices are also
available "unprogrammed" for prototyping and as Renesas calls it "on-board ROM
programming" by the customer.
The new M37544G2A features 8 kBytes of "ROM", 256 bytes of RAM has two 8-bit and
one 16-bit timers, a UART or SPI interface, a 6 channel 8-bit A/D, and a
watchdog timer. The device operates from 1.8V to 5.5V and is available in 32-pin
SDIP and 32-pin LQFP packages. Price is 200 Yen and 180 Yen respecitvely in
sample quantities.
Sensory announced it is launching a series of training
seminars to assist developers in using Sensory speech microcontrollers within
their product designs. Four locations and dates have been announced:
Hong Kong, China : September 23-24, 2004
East Coast, USA: October 7-8, 2004
Silicon Valley, CA : October 12-13, 2004
Los Angeles, CA: October 28-29, 2004
The 2-day technical course will cover tradeoffs between IC and software based
implementations of speech recognition, an overview of available technologies,
and will provide examples and benefits from implementing a speech user
interface. Substantial time will be spent learning tools and creating a
prototype products. All course participants will create their own custom
prototypes during the seminar, and should arrive with ideas for product
prototypes. Seminar cost is US$1995.00. For more info see:
http://www.sensoryinc.com
Texas Instruments has been named a 2004 Technology Innovation
Award winner in the World Microcontroller Market for its MSP430 ultra-low power
technology. In selecting TI, Frost & Sullivan called the MSP430 family of
ultra-low-power 16-bit RISC mixed-signal processors the ultimate solution for
battery-powered measurement applications. The award will be presented to TI at
the MSP430 Advanced Technical Conference (ATC) in Dallas Nov. 9, 2004. For
details and dates on the ATC held in US, Asia and Europe, see http://www.ti.com/atc
The Technology Innovation Award is presented to the company that has
demonstrated technological superiority within its industry, distinguishing it as
a success in making noteworthy product performance contributions.
ZiLOG has unveiled a migration path to high volume
microcontroller production with the roll-out of the Crimzon(TM) ZLR16300, a low
cost supporting ROM-based member of the Crimzon MCU Family of infrared
microcontrollers. Available immediately, the ZLR16300 devices are 100 percent
software compatible with ZiLOG's current Crimzon family of OTP-based IR
microcontrollers.
The ZLR16300 is available in 4k, 8k and 16k memory sizes with many key features,
including low power consumption, two standby modes, special architecture to
automate both generation and reception of complex pulses or signals, six
priority interrupts, high and low voltage detection with flag, programmable
Watch-Dog/Power-On reset circuits, two independent comparators with programmable
interrupt polarity and programmable mask options.
The ZLR16300 will be available in a wide range of package styles and pin-outs,
including 20-and 28-pin SOIC, SSOP and DIP options. The ZLR16300 is 100 percent
backward compatible to ZiLOG's L88/L85/L82 microcontrollers. The devices are
priced at $1.15 in 10,000 unit volumes.
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