The 8051 is alive and well. Cygnal Integrated Products has crammed a 25-MHz 8051 core, 8 kbytes of flash, and 256 bytes of data RAM into a tiny 11-pin, 3- by 3-mm (9 mm2) micro-lead package (MLP). Chip peripherals include a 500-ksample/s 8-bit analog-to-digital converter with an integrated temperature sensor, as well as three 8-bit general-purpose and three 16-bit counter/timers. The C8051F300's footprint is 13 times smaller than a conventional 8051 with similar features.
And there's more. Additional peripherals for the C8051F300 include a 5-V-tolerant eight-port I/O, enhanced UART and SMBus serial ports, a 16-bit programmable counter array (PCA) with three capture/compare modules, a real-time PCA clock, and an external clock. The internal 25-MHz clock, which supports the UART, is accurate to within 2%. An external oscillator, say 32 kHz, can also be used for low-power operation.
The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) has eight external inputs and an amplifier with programmable gains of 4, 2, 1, and 0.5. The low-current 0.3-µA comparator has programmable hysteresis and response time that can be a Wake-up or Reset source. Unlike most 8-bitters, this microcontroller implements on-chip debugging with breakpoints, single-stepping, and watch points. Users can Inspect/Modify memory, registers, and the stack.
Designed for low-power operation, the chip uses 2.7- to 3.6-V supplies and typically draws 5 mA of operating current at 25 MHz. Prices start at $3.83 each in 1000-piece quantities. A development kit is available for $99. The chip and kit are both available now.
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