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Microcontrollers take on larger targets

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Dec 9, 2003

The latest series of powerful devices in NEC's popular F-Line family of microcontrollers offer the largest memory sizes and most I/O options yet.

The latest series of powerful devices in NEC's popular F-Line family of microcontrollers have onboard CAN support and extensive onboard peripherals, offering the largest memory sizes and most I/O options yet.

NEC's F-Line family consists of a variety of competitively priced devices with extensive onboard peripherals in a wide range of pin counts and memory sizes.

Packaged in a 144-pin QFP outline, the new V850ES/FJ2 is the largest pin count device in the family with the most comprehensive range of I/O and largest memory options, and is available for operation over the wide temperature range -40 to +110C.

Based on NEC's powerful 32bit V850ES core operating at 20MHz, with a minimum 50ns instruction cycle time, these new F-Line devices offer a range of RAM sizes up to 20Kbyte and a choice of Flash and Mask ROM options from 256 to 512Kbyte.

Single-voltage Flash technology allows both in-circuit and in-application programming of this series of devices.

The V850ES/FJ2 series offers up to 128 I/O ports and 24 channels of 10bit ADC.

Devices in this series have 13 channels of 16bit PWM, up to four CAN channels plus four LIN-capable UART channels.

NEC's F-Line features on-chip peripherals that help reduce the number of external components, thus reducing system cost and increasing system reliability.

Power-on clear (POC) monitors the external power supply during power-up and holds the reset until a secure voltage level is achieved.

This replaces an external reset device.

A low-voltage indicator (LVI) generates a reset or an interrupt when the supply voltage level drops below a defined level - this replaces an external voltage detector.

The internal ring oscillator can be used as a clock monitor to observe the main clock during operation.

It can also operate the internal watchdog timer replacing an external watchdog device.

Finally the LIN UART provides hardware support for automatic sync break field recognition and LIN wake-up without an additional interrupt pin.

This considerably reduces software development for LIN communication.

Sunrise Electronics provides complete design in support for the F-line family, including a range of development tools for this highly scalable family.

Once written for a specific F-Line device, software modules can be re-used for other devices in the family without changes.

This is possible due to the consistent re-use of core and peripheral macros in all devices, including registers and address areas.

On-chip debug facilities also reduce development times.

Similar economies are maintained for hardware design.

As the same placing has been used for the peripheral macros in all package options, designers can easily change the package without facing a complete redesign of the PCB.