Flash MCU Supports PC Peripherals

The flexibility of flash memory is brought to PC peripherals employing a USB or PS/2 interface with the 8-bit 68HC908JB8 microcontroller. Applications for the flash MCU include keyboards, mice, RF wireless receivers, USB converters, set-top boxes, and peripherals. With a 1.5-Mbps USB interface module, the chip is USB 1.1 compliant with three end points and three transmit and two receive buffers, allowing communication between the peripheral and the PC host. The IC integrates 8 KB of flash memory capable of write/erase cycling to 10,000 cycles and programming as fast as 2 ms for a 64-byte block. Other MCU features include 256 bytes of RAM, 37 I/O lines with 29 pullups, a dual-channel, 16-bit timer with input capture and output compare, 3.3V regulator, and low-voltage detection with reset. Available in three package versions, 68HC908JB8 chip is priced at $2.20 each/50,000 for 20-pin SOICs, $2.60 each for 28-pin SOICs, and $2.95 each for a 44-pin QFP package.