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Motorola Expanding 16-bit Hybrid MCU/DSP Portfolio

56800E Core Combined with Embedded Flash Yields Higher Performance Controllers with Extended Temperature Operation

The manufacturer says . . .

ChipCenter's Paul Schreier says . . .

Phoenix, Ariz.--Nov. 4, 2002--New options will soon be available from Motorola Inc. for embedded systems that require high-performance microcontroller (MCU) and digital signal processor (DSP) functionality with integrated flash memory. Motorola is combining the performance of its newer 56800E hybrid core with the peripherals of the original 56800 family to meet growing market demand for higher performance cores and embedded flash memory. The combination will provide a natural migration path for existing users of Motorola's industry-leading 8- and 16-bit MCUs that require more processing capabilities. "With a portfolio of more than 75 derivatives, Motorola has the broadest portfolio of MCUs and MCU/DSP hybrid chips with embedded flash," said Tony Massimini, chief of technology at analyst firm Semico Research. "The flexibility enabled by flash is an important benefit to OEMs, enabling variations in product lines without redesign of the an entire system." The flash-based 56800E devices, named the 56F83x family, are being designed for automotive, instrumentation, and industrial-networking applications, including electronic power-assisted steering, data-acquisition equipment, and factory-automation systems. This new MCU/DSP hybrid family will operate at 3.3 V over an extended temperature ranges (-40°C to +125°C) at 60 million instructions per second (MIPS). "Motorola has to date shipped more than 200 million units of flash-based MCUs and MCU/DSP hybrid devices," said Paul Grimme, corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola's 8/16-Bit Products Division. "We are committed to building our best-in-class portfolio with the 56F83x family, leveraging Motorola's existing nonvolatile memory expertise and offering a performance migration path for automotive and industrial control applications where both MCU and DSP functions are required." Hybrid Architecture Historically, design engineers have addressed the challenges of adding control functions and processing power to systems by dividing the system tasks between multiple chips or even multiple-core solutions. With its 56800 family, Motorola is the first semiconductor manufacturer in the industry to integrate into a single core the performance of a traditional DSP with the control functionality of an MCU. It is designed to enable engineers to reduce the number of chips as well as overall system costs. Motorola's 56800E core, the evolution of the original 56800 architecture, is available today in six devices with a performance of 120 MIPS designed for voice- and data-communications applications. Current users of Motorola's 8- and 16-bit MCUs, as well as current users of the 56800 family, can expect to have a migration path to the higher performance 56800E core and still have integrated flash memory at extended operating temperatures. In addition, the 56800E flash-based devices will provide 32-bit performance with 16-bit code densities. This is ideal for 16-bit MCU customers needing additional processing power while maintaining code efficiency. Price and Availability The 56F83x devices are an extension of the existing 56800 family, with suggested list prices ranging from $2.50 to $20.00 (USD). Select customers are currently sampling the new 56F83x products today, and general market availability is expected in early 2003. Development Tool Support Metrowerks, a Motorola company, offers its award-winning CodeWarrior Integrated Development Environment (IDE) as a single tool that crosses Motorola's family of 16-bit controllers. The CodeWarrior IDE is designed to provide navigation, editing, and debugging functions such as intuitive graphical project management, optimized C compiler, assembler, linker, debugger, instruction set simulator, and more. Through a common IDE environment, the tool helps customers to develop code for Motorola's existing MCU and MCU/DSP families as well as future 56F83x controllers, helping to smooth the migration between product lines. Software support from Motorola includes motor control, industrial, automotive, and general-purpose applications. Designed to enable customers to reduce development time and costs, the software tools include production-quality drivers and algorithms for the existing 56800 and 56800E families, and will include support for the new 56F83x chips when they are introduced.

First off, let's establish that with this release Motorola is making a road-map announcement rather than discussing point products—they expect to have specific product definitions and details for this family of devices early next year. What the firm is trying to establish is that it is combining a leadership position in flash technology and a long history of success in microcontrollers with years of DSP experience to broaden a product portfolio they embarked on several years ago. Let's briefly run through some history. In early 2000, the first 56F8xx devices arrived, and they ushered in Mot's dual-functioning core concept. Rather than simply put a DSP core and a microcontroller MCU core on the same die, they combined the best features of both into a single integrated core. In this case, they integrated technologies from the 56000 DSP and the HC11 MCU. They also added some nonvolatile memory in the form of flash in amounts from 8 K words to 64 K words. The parts run at 80 MHz and achieve a performance of 40 MIPS, and they have a temp range from –40 to +85 and 176°C. These devices are targeted primarily at industrial control applications. The next major step took place at the beginning of this year with the 5685x family. First, note that there's no "F" in the part numbers to indicate that the chip designers replaced the flash with RAM. Perhaps more significantly, they took advantage of an enhanced architecture that allowed single-cycle-per-instruction capabilities—which in essence immediately doubled the family's processing power. This along with process improvements in the interim allows the chips to perform at 120 MMACS (million multiply-accumulates per sec), whereas the previous family was at 40 MMACS. With the RAM, the devices are targeted at telecommunications infrastructure and other areas with more of a true DSP flavor. Early next year, and the topic of this release, you'll see shipments of devices that represent the third wave on this road map, the 56F83x family. From the standpoint of raw performance, it falls between the two other families with a rating of 60 MMACS. It takes the enhanced dual-function architecture and combines it with Mot's latest advances in flash memories; it also offers a wide variety of peripherals that give it broad appeal in those application areas where flash memory is important. Along those lines, Brett Black, product marketing manager for the DSP operation, explains that automotive, industrial, and instrumentation are prime candidates for this technology in the 56F83x family. From the diagram above this announcement you can see some of the family highlights. Don't look on one chip for all the peripherals given as blue boxes on the left half of the diagram. Rather, the left half shows a superset of features from which the final chips will be configured. One Black likes to point out is an internal temperature sensor, which might prove useful in an automotive application where, for example, if you have drive by wire, you want to know right away if a chip is overheating for whatever reason. Black is especially proud that these MCU/DSP combos can operate at 60 MHz, and supply plenty of flash memory (now as much as 256K bytes), and yet spec a standard operating range to temps as high as to 125 and 176°C. He adds that because of Motorola's experience, this being the firm's third generation of extended-temperature flash memory, users encounter no risk when choosing this family. He contrasts that to competitors who fall short in either amount of flash, temperature range, or speed. Black also made a few comments about future products on the road map. In the 2004 timeframe you might look for some low-cost versions of the F83x family. They also expect further process improvements to allow the development of a more powerful RAM-based family in the 568xx series.

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