Read all about Zilog processors and tools

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Feb 14, 2005

According to Spectrum, the European design community is remarkably unaware of the breadth and depth of the Zilog 8bit microcontroller product range and associated development tools.

The European design community is remarkably unaware of the breadth and depth of the Zilog 8bit microcontroller product range and associated development tools.

Revealed in a recent survey conducted by the Spectrum Electronics Group, Zilog's pan-European sales and marketing representative, this unawareness is all the more surprising viewed against Zilog's historical position as the inventors of the ever popular Z8 and Z80 device and the company's ongoing introductions of products tailored to the needs of the market.

In response, the Spectrum Group has prepared a shortform guide to Zilog processors, which covers the company's four key 8bit MCU families.

Zilog's new eZ80Acclaim! family of Flash microcontrollers combine the 8bit performance needed to handle every-day embedded control tasks with tremendous networking and communication capabilities.

These award winning devices share the same CPU core as other eZ80 devices yet also offer on-chip integrated memories (up to 256Kbyte Flash and 16Kbyte SRAM), core speeds up to 50MHz, and in the case of the eZ80F91, an on-chip Ethernet MAC.

And for applications that don't require the networking capability, the low-cost eZ80F92/F93 devices offer less Flash/RAM, and are pin-compatible with the ROMless eZ80L92.

The eZ80F91 modular development kit (part number eZ80F910100KIT) is available priced at $99.95.

Ideal for new designs or when upgrading from the existing Z8 architecture, Zilog's Z8 Encore! family of Flash microcontrollers offer up to 64Kbyte of Flash and the ability to reprogram the software code during development and on into production.

Performance is further enhanced by Zilog's register-to-register architecture, featuring a 20MHz CPU core, up to 4Kbyte of RAM, and a three-channel DMA controller.

Users can choose from the three Z8 Encore! development kits available according to their application and memory size requirements.

Each kit is priced at $39.95 and includes the ZDS II - IDE with a full ANSI C compiler, and everything necessary to begin code development.

The kits are: the Z8 Encore! Z8F642 MCU development kit (part number Z8F64200100KIT); the Z8 Encore! (8K/4K) development kit (part number Z8F08200100KIT); and the Z8 Encore! (28-pin) 4K Series development kit (part nimber Z8F04328100KIT).

Zilog's Z8 Encore! XP family of high performance 8bit microcontrollers with extended peripherals combine a high level of integration with low overall system cost.

These devices integrate a temperature sensor and a transimpedance amplifier, the outputs of which are processed by an enhanced sigma-delta analogue to digital convertor.

Additional features integrated into Z8 Encore! XP devices include an on-chip internal precision oscillator, nonvolatile data storage memory and large working memory.

Two development kits are available to support the Z8 Encore! XPT, according to the pin-package selected.

Both kits include the ZDS II - IDE with a full ANSI C compiler, and everything necessary to begin code development.

The Z8 Encore! XP 4K Series (28-pin) dev kit (part number Z8F04A28100KIT), is priced at $39.95.

The Z8 Encore! XP 8-pin (8-pin) dev kit (part number Z8F04A08100KIT), is priced at $49.95.

Comprising OTP- and ROM-based devices, Zilog's new Z8 GP family of general-purpose microcontrollers offer 237byte of general-purpose RAM and up to 32Kbyte of OTP memory.

The Z8 GP family provides support for standard, extended, and automotive temperature ranges.

The low-voltage series supports voltage ranges from 2.0 to 3.6V, making it perfect for low-power applications, whereas the high-voltage series supports voltage ranges from 2.0 to 5.5V.

Both series offer fast-executing memory use, high levels of GPIO, sophisticated interrupts, input/output bit manipulation, automated pulse generation/reception, and internal key-scan pull-up resistors.

Z8 GP devices are supported by: the Z8 GP in-circuit emulator and development platform (part number ZGP323ICE01ZEM); and the Z8 GP programming system (part number ZGP32300100ZPR).