More features for Flash microcontrollers

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Nov 7, 2003

An enhanced range of Z8 Encore! Flash microcontrollers incorporate 16 to 64Kbyte of Flash memory.

An enhanced range of Z8 Encore! Flash microcontrollers incorporate 16 to 64Kbyte of Flash memory.

The new series features an enhanced four-mode on-chip oscillator, selectable enable/disable of VBO during stop mode for improved power consumption, and 5V-tolerant I/O pads.

Zilog will continue support for its current Z8 Encore! Flash microcontroller, and will make migration assistance available to customers who wish to upgrade and take advantage of the new features.

"Attention to customer needs has always been a key focus for us", said Zilog President Mike Burger.

"Our customers asked us for enhancements that would give them an edge in their product designs.

We helped them by creating our enhanced Z8 Encore! Flash microcontroller offering.

The new features give our customers better performance and design flexibility, and shorten their time to market".

Featuring Zilog's high-performance register-to-register based architecture, the enhanced Z8 Encore! Flash microcontroller combines a fast 20MHz core, up to 64Kbyte of Flash memory, up to 4Kbyte of linear register SRAM, and an extensive array of on-chip peripherals.

"The new Z8 Encore! is exactly what we needed to move forward with our new I/O processor product designs", said Mario Sauvageau,Vice-President of Engineering for Magnipix, a manufacturer of CPU products, backplanes, instrumentation, and I/O processors for the industrial market.

"The improved oscillator section was a welcome enhancement.

The new VBO design and 5V-tolerant I/O pads are excellent features for our products, which we build for industrial environments".

The new Z8 Encore! Flash microcontroller provides voltage brownout (VBO) protection that can be selectively enabled or disabled during stop mode.

A new on-chip oscillator provides four different oscillator modes, including one that supports external RC networks with oscillation frequencies up to 4MHz or ceramic resonators with frequencies up to 20MHz.

An enhanced 12-channel, 10bit ADC and 5V-tolerant I/O pads round out the offering.

The new Z8 Encore! Flash MCU development kit (Z8F64200100KIT) features the Windows version of Zilog Developer Studio (ZDSII), ANSI-C compiler and C source-level debugger, full-featured evaluation board, 64Kbyte Z8F642 Flash device, RS232 to ZDB cable, universal power supply, and target module interface board.

The on-chip debugger eliminates the need for an expensive in-circuit emulator, uses a one-wire interface, and features unlimited breakpoints.

The development kit also features the Zilog XTools intuitive, production-quality suite of tools designed to reduce total system development time.

The company is offering its Z8 Encore Flash MCU development kit for only $39.95.

Zilog development kits offer outstanding value and have helped Zilog customers reduce development time by as much as 50% over other manufacturers' kits.

The Z8F642 Flash microcontroller development kit (Z8F64200100KIT) is available immediately from authorized Zilog distributors, and engineering samples of the device in all package types are available from Zilog.

The Z8F6421AN020SC with 64Kbyte of Flash memory in the 44-pin LQFP package will sell for $5.06 in 1000-unit quantities.