Microcontroller upgrades for networking duties

The latest addition to the eZ80Acclaim! family of 8bit MCUs is an enhanced device designed for use in Internet/intranet-based networking and communications applications.

The latest addition to the eZ80Acclaim! family of 8bit MCUs is an enhanced device designed for use in Internet/intranet-based networking and communications applications.

Available in LQFP and BGA packages, Zilog's new offering is designated the eZ80F91AZA50 (LQFP) or eZ80F91NAA50 (BGA) depending on packaging type.

This latest member of the eZ80Acclaim! family, features increased registers for better I/O performance, a modified power controller for lower power consumption and updated Flash memory functionality to reduce code size and speed time to market.

Internet-based connectivity is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in today's electronics market, providing a powerful mix of embedded control capabilities, expanded memory functionality and enhanced communications features, this latest version of the eZ80F91 controller provides an optimum combination of features to enable collection of data from - and control of - a networked group of instruments or systems via a single PC.

Along with the other members of the eZ80Acclaim! family, it features on-chip integrated memories (up to 256Kbyte Flash and 16Kbyte SRAM), core speeds up to 50MHz and an on-chip Ethernet MAC.

Commenting on this newest offering, Zilog Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Dr Norman Sheridan, stated: "Our award-winning, Acclaim! family has achieved widespread industry adoption over the past few years".

"The upgrades and enhancements incorporated in this newest member of the family deliver the capabilities needed to implement communication protocol stacks and the flexibility required to perform in-system application firmware updates".

"It also offers a rich set of serial communication peripherals intended to facilitate designs for a wide range of networked applications, including consumer electronics, point-of-sale terminals, security systems, medical instrumentation and industrial control".

The eZ80F91AZA50 and eZ80F91NAA50 devices have identical footprints to the previous eZ80F91 generation.

The new devices were designed to be backward-compatible, although some minor code modification may be required, dependant on which features are used.

Development kits and modules are available to facilitate designs developed using these new offerings.

Zilog's latest 8bit MCU is available now.

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