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16-BITS OR BUST

by Tom Cantrell

Start ı Unlikely Source ı Under the Hood ı Nihon-no Micon? ı Sources and PDF

UNLIKELY SOURCE

I gave old pal and MCU-numbers guru Tom Starnes of Dataquest a call to get an update. Turns out heıs been struggling with the whole issue of terminology as well (see the sidebar "Is a 32-bit MCU really an MPU?"). After a fun discussion of that subject, I got down to businessıwhatıs the story with 16 bits?

Bet you didnıt know that something on the order of 500 million 16-bit MCUs were shipped in 1998! Thatıs a lot of units, many more than 32-bit chips and practically one quarter of the everyone-knows-itıs-huge 8-bit market. Which raises the question: if 16-bit MCUs are such a big deal, how come theyıre so stealthy when it comes to showing up on designerıs radar?

A close look at Tomıs numbers reveals one of the answers: 16-bit MCUs are somewhat of a Japanese phenomenon. For instance, four of the top five 16-bit MCU suppliers are Japanese. And, if you look at demand as well as supply, youıll see the same geocentricity. In Japan, the yen volume of 16-bit MCUs is almost as large as that for 8-bit MCUs, even though it represents a much smaller fraction in all other markets.

Perhaps itıs because the U.S., having kicked off the MCU craze with the original 8-bit ı51s, ı68s, and PICs got more locked-in to 8-bits, while Japanıs later start left more of an opening for 16-bit chips. Iım reminded of the way developing countries often go straight to wireless for their telecommunications infrastructure, leapfrogging past the need to run a bunch of wire like those who started sooner. Or maybe, itıs the fact that 8-bit ASCII isnıt enough to deal with the thousands of Kanji characters. And, perhaps, you could attribute some of the difference to the rather convoluted fits and starts of the 16-bit efforts by U.S. suppliers.

So whoıs number one in 16-bit MCUs? It may come as a surprise that Mitsubishi wins the title with 18% of the market, besting Motorola, the overall MCU leader, who stands at 14% and way ahead of the better-known Japanese IC suppliers NEC, Hitachi, and Fujitsu, who all hover around 10%.

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