New 8-Bit MCU Family Seen Making Deep Inroads In Consumer, Industrial Marts

Built on a 0.5-µm HC08 core, which traces its ancestry back to the 20-year-old 68HC05 architecture, the Nitron family of 8-bit, flash-enriched microcontrollers has been developed to embed control and intelligence functions in a host of consumer, automotive and industrial products—everything from dimmer switches, digital keypads and windshield wiper motors to washing machines and industrial control and security systems. The initial offering consists of six MCUs—68HC908QT1/2/4 and 68HC908QY1/2/4—each packing 1.5 to 4 KB of flash and 128 bytes of RAM. The QT2/4 and QY2/4 also integrate a trim-mable 3.2-MHz nominal bus frequency clock oscillator and a 4-channel, 8-bit A/D converter. The microcontrollers’ 8-bit 68HC08 CPU operates at 8 MHz, with instruction cycle times pegged at 125 ns (min.). The CPU supports compact modular coding in assembly or C, while the MCUs’ embedded flash offers programming speeds reportedly up to 100 times faster than most other embedded flash. The MCUs can function with a 2.7V to 5.5V supply and also boast of: flexible I/O, including up to 13 bi-directional I/O and one input; system protection, such as selectable trip-point low-voltage inhibit (LVI) and COP watchdog timer with auto-wakeup from STOP capability; a -40°C to +85°C operating temperature range; and free CodeWarrior Development Studio. The 68HC908QT1/2/4 Nitrons come in 8-lead SOICs and PDIPs, while the 68HC908QY1/2/4 parts are housed in 16-lead PDIPs and TSSOPs. Prices for Nitron MCUs start at $0.70 each/10,000. An evaluation board is also available. For more details, contact MOTOROLA SPS, Denver, CO. (512) 895-3217.