Microcontrollers/Microprocessors Out in Force at Embedded Systems

As is the case with many technical conferences/tradeshows, the last few weeks prior to the event see a variety of product announcements that vendors will be demonstrating and discussing at the show. The Embedded Systems Conference, East Coast Version, is no exception. In contrast to last year's Boston ESC, which was dominated by software announcements (see Software Reigns at ESC), this year's Fall ESC predominantly featured microprocessor and microcontroller product rollouts prior to the show. This announcement wrap-up summarizes some of the more interesting announcements, several of which will be highlighted on the exhibit floor.

Figure 1:  Zilog's Z8 Encore! flash microcontroller is packed with on-chip peripherals around an eZ8 processing core

The Z8 Encore products combine hardware, software, and a development kit that includes a free ANSI C-Compiler, ZDS II integrated development environment (IDE) software, evaluation board, and a complete suite of Z8 Encore! documentation. Backward compatible with the Z8 MCU, Encore runs at more than twice the speed and, at two to six cycles per instruction, executes instructions three times faster than the Z8. Target applications for the general-purpose Encore include low to mid-range consumer appliances, building control, industrial control, and instrumentation. After designs are "locked in", you can convert any Encore flash device to a ROM MCU for lower cost.

According to Motorola, 56F83X chips combine the control functionality of an MCU and the computational power of a DSP. You get DSP functionality through features such as embedded 16-bit multiplier-accumulators (MACs), nested looping capability, modulo arithmetic for circular buffers, integer and fractional arithmetic support, and fast interrupt support. Microcontroller functionality comes from general-purpose register files, 8/16/32-bit data types, and a full set of bit-manipulation instructions along with 16- and 32-bit shifting. Additional 56F83X features include an external memory interface, interrupt controller with fast interrupts, on-chip voltage regulator and ADC reference, PWM modules, quad timers, quadrature decoders, temperature sensor, FlexCAN module, multiple serial ports and GPIO's, and a JTAG/EOnCE debug port (Figure 2).

Figure 2:  Motorola's 56F83X MCU combines MCU and DSP functionality in a single chip

Motorola provides software support for the 56F83X family with the CodeWarrior Integrated IDE, a single tool that supports the complete company's family of 16-bit controllers. CodeWarrior provides navigation, editing, and debugging functions such as intuitive graphical project management, optimized C compiler, assembler, linker, debugger, instruction set simulator, and more. Support also includes motor control, industrial, automotive, and general-purpose applications, with drivers and algorithms for the existing 56800 and 56800E families, as well as for the new 56F83x chips upon their introduction.

NEC has recently introduced several new MCUs that also target automotive applications.

The V850E/CA2 is based on NEC's high-performance 32-bit V850E CPU core, which enables execution of most instructions in a single clock cycle. The controller is available either with two CAN channels and 12 Kbytes of RAM, or four CAN channels and 16 Kbytes of RAM.

The V850E/CA2's ROM-less design enables development flexibility. For example, if the code needs more memory size than originally planned, you can connect up to 16 Mbytes of external flash memory via the integrated non-multiplexed 16-bit memory interface. A 32-MHz clock speed combined with 4 Kbytes of on-chip instruction cache enables high-speed code execution from external memory devices.

Other V850E/CA2 features include a 12x10-bit ADC; timer unit with five 16-bit timers: watch and watchdog timers; three clocked serial interfaces; two UARTs; interrupt controller; 78 I/O lines; PLL for peripherals, and separate spread-spectrum PLL for CPU operation. The on-chip spread-spectrum PLL, along with optimized chip-design techniques, enables the MCU to meet stringent automotive low electromagnetic-interference (EMI) requirements.

All of the devices have failsafe circuitry with an on-chip ring oscillator, clock monitor, power-on clear (POC)/power-on reset (POR) circuits, and low-voltage indicator (LVI), important for safety-critical applications. Automotive applications range from door and mirror controls to high-end safety equipment such as passive occupancy-detection systems.

The 78K0/Kx1 sub-series is based on NEC's 8-bit 78K0 CISC CPU core. Clock frequency can be between 2 and 10 MHz and operation from 2.7 to 5.5 V. The controllers also generate minimal EMI. The 78K0/Kx1 devices are offered in mask-ROM configurations ranging from 8 Kbytes to 60 Kbytes and flash variations from 24 Kbytes to 60 Kbytes. 78K0/Kx1 devices target low-end body applications such as door and mirror modules, advanced wiper modules, seat modules, and keyless entry/immobilizers.

The V850ES/Kx1 sub-series is based on NEC's 32-bit V850ES RISC CPU core, which enables most instructions to be executed in a single clock cycle. The devices support clock frequencies up to 20 MHz and 2.7 to 5.5V operation. Configurations include mask ROM versions from 64 Kbytes to 128 Kbytes and a 128-Kbyte flash variation. You can use the V850ES/Kx1 devices for mid-end body and safety applications such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) modules, door modules, and low- to mid-end passive occupancy-detection systems.

Also based on the V850ES core, the V850ES/Fx2 sub-series has the same features as do the V850ES/Kx1 microcontrollers. V850ES/Fx2 devices have one-to-four channels of full CAN with up to 16 message buffers per channel. You can use V850ES/Fx2 devices for mid-range to high-end body and safety applications, such as gateways, smart junction-box modules, and mid-range to high-end passive occupancy-detection systems.

Security features of the core include:

• A secure memory-management unit, which partitions applications and protects the sensitive data within each application by preventing unauthorized access by rogue applications
• Anti-hacker and power-analysis countermeasures that the designer can configure
• A low interrupt latency, which allows the core to respond more quickly to attack.

The 4KSd offers flexible, high-performance, software-programmable cryptographic calculation for both public- and secret-key algorithms, including RSA, DES, AES and elliptic curve. The core can perform a 1024-bit RSA signature authentication in less than 15 msec at 200 MHz. With cryptography in software, you don't need a hardware coprocessor, resulting in lower power consumption, reduced chip size, and lower overall system cost. In addition, multiple applications running on a 4KSd core can use different encryption keys without any loss in performance. User-defined instruction set extensions let you create unique features for security and increase performance for cryptography and other applications.

The Fonix proprietary Neural Network Technology provides accurate speech recognition, particularly in noisy environments, and does not require the user to train their voice to the system. The neural network architecture works well with NEC's VR Series microprocessors because of the processors' enhanced architecture and support for DSP-type instructions to enable greater speech functionality.

For example, in low bit-rate 'Simple Profile' at Level 1 applications, the 110-kgate CS6701 encoder produces QCIF (176 x 144 pixel) resolution compressed video at 15 frames per second and consumes less than 15 mW of power in a 0.18-micron chip when clocked under 5 MHz. This compares favorably to software-based encoders that, in order to produce similar video performance, need a dedicated processor running at 10X this clock rate.

Other, complementary CS6700 cores include the CS6710 Motion Estimator, the CS6711 Pixel Compressor, and the CS6712 Bitstream Packer. Bit-accurate C-models for behavioral evaluation of any of these cores are available from the vendor.