Product category:
Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs
News Release from: Ramtron International | Subject: VRS51L3174
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 22 June 2007
MCU drops into 8051 slots for
nonvolatile upgrade
8051-based microcontroller incorporates 8Kbyte of nonvolatile FRAM and can be mounted in industry standard 44-pin QFP sockets for easy device migration.
New from Ramtron International, the VRS51L3174 is an 8051-based microcontroller with 8Kbyte of nonvolatile FRAM that drops into industry standard 44-pin QFP sockets for easy device migration Ramtron has added FRAM to its fast and flexible Versa 8051s for a quick and reliable nonvolatile data storage and processing system that only a FRAM-Enhanced MCU can provide
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 1 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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The VRS51L3174 combines 8Kbyte of FRAM memory with a fully-integrated, high-performance system-on-chip.
Features include an advanced 40MIPS, single-cycle 8051-core, 64Kbyte Flash with in-system/in-application programming, 4Kbyte SRAM, digital signal processing (DSP) extensions and a robust digital peripheral set.
Operating at 3.3V over the entire industrial temperature range, the VRS51L3174 is the ideal embedded data acquisition solution, targeting a wide array of advanced applications from sensors and metering to industrial control, instrumentation and medical devices.
Further reading
Serial F-RAM remembers pressure transmitters
F-RAM device stores configurable parameters such as transmitter ranges, signal types, fluid properties etc, and retains the data when power is removed.
Ferroelectric RAM puts events on the record
Integrated event monitoring device continuously monitors state changes, stores them in FRAM and alerts the host system to the changes.
FRAM offers upgrade for Flash applications
High-density nonvolatile ferroelectric RAM features low power consumption and communicates via a high-speed serial peripheral interface.
The 8Kbyte of true nonvolatile RAM (no battery/super cap required to maintain data) is mapped into the VRS51L3174's XRAM memory for easy access, fast writes and essentially unlimited endurance.
The 40MHz, single-cycle 8051 processor is one of the fastest 8bit processors on the market.
Its advanced core can deliver up to 40MIPS throughput and is instruction-compatible with standard 8051s, for smooth device migration.
An on-chip mult/accu/div unit with 32bit barrel shifter significantly outperforms 8bit processors when executing DSP operations (FIR filtering, sensor output linearisation, multiple-byte arithmetic operations, etc).
It performs 16bit signed multiplication and 32bit addition in one cycle and 16bit signed division in five cycles.
The barrel shifter enables logic/arithmetic shift operations.
The 40MHz internal oscillator cuts system costs by eliminating the need for an external crystal oscillator.
A USB-JTAG interface provides user-friendly and quick device programming and real-time, in-circuit debugging/emulation of the user application without the need for a costly emulator.
Two universal asynchronous receiver/transmitters operate at up to 1.25Mbit/s.
Each UART incorporates a dedicated baud rate generator with 20bit equivalent resolution.
The communication speed on the serial peripheral interface can be configured up to 20Mbit/s and transactions are adjustable from 1 to 32bit.
Two pulsewidth counter modules provide advanced timer control, simplifying event duration measurement.
There are eight pulsewidth modulators with up to 16bit adjustable resolution.
Each PWM includes its own timer, which can also be used as general purpose timers.
Other support peripherals include an I2C interface, three 16bit general purpose timers/counters with three timer capture inputs, a watchdog timer, and 49 interrupts that share 16 interrupt vectors.
The VRS51L3174 is available in a QFP-44 package that is pin-compatible with standard 8051 MCUs.
FRAM simplifies the design cycle by eliminating the code overhead accompanying Flash data storage, and the limited endurance and drawn out write cycles of Flash/EEPROM.
Unlike Flash, FRAM bytes can be modified without first erasing an entire sector, rendering it easier to use.
And unlike Flash/EEPROM, FRAM provides virtually unlimited read/write cycles and fast data writes.
The VRS51L3174 is currently sampling, and costs less than US $5 in quantities of 10,000.
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