8 bit microcontroller with 5 KB RAM
28 March 2001
DSP, Micros & Memory
Every so often, one encounters a project that needs far more RAM than the 128, 256, or even 1024 bytes RAM in a conventional 8 bit microcontroller. For these special cases, NEC has now developed an advanced 80-pin standard microcontroller - the µPD78F0066. In the Flash variant, this microcontroller provides 5 KB RAM and 48 KB ROM. The version with Mask ROM (µPD780065) has the same RAM capacity but 40 KB ROM. Using special registers, it is possible to match the memory configuration of the Flash variant exactly to that of the Mask ROM version. This feature allows smooth switching from Flash to Mask ROM products after the ramp-up phase.
Based on the Von-Neumann architecture of the 78K0 family, the controller is capable, for example, of loading and then executing program code in RAM.
The µPD78F0066 (in an 80-pin LQFP package) comes with a number of integrated peripherals, including 60 I/O pins, 8-channel A/D converter with 8 bit resolution, one 16 bit and two 8 bit timers, watchdog, four serial interface channels (including 1 UART) and two PWM outputs. At an operating voltage of 2,7 to 5,5 V and a maximum clock frequency of 8,38 MHz the instruction execution time is adjustable in the range from 0,24 to 3,81 µs.
Since minimum power consumption is especially important in battery-operated applications, this device can be switched at any time to a power-saving subclock mode.
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