New Industry Products

Silicon Labs Expands Small Form-Factor MCU Line

March 30, 2008 by Jeff Shepard

Silicon Laboratories Inc. expanded its small form factor microcontrollers (MCUs) with the C8051T630 family of EEPROM-based 8-bit devices. Pin-for-pin compatible with Silicon Labs’ C8051F330 family, the T630 devices are said to give customers the ability to easily interchange the two MCU families for a given product platform.

According to SiliconLabs, the MCUs are targeted at consumer and industrial applications that are under increasing cost pressure but still demand comprehensive product features such as toys, camera modules, cell phone accessories, portable devices, home appliances and motor controllers.

The T630 family is based on a patented, pipelined, single-cycle 8051 core that delivers up to 25 MIPS of CPU bandwidth while providing high functional density per square millimeter. The MCU integrates a 10-bit, 500 ksps A/D converter with an on-chip voltage reference that performs fast and accurate measurements. The T630 also offers a true analog output with its 10-bit D/A converter that can be used for sensor excitation, fast-responsive control or high-end user output. Additional on-chip features include a voltage regulator and precision internal oscillator ultimately reducing the number of external components.

Systems using the T630 family can be designed and prototyped using the F330 family flash memory equivalent and then switched to T630 without any hardware changes. A full-featured development kit is available containing all the hardware and software required to develop an embedded system using the T630 including a socket to program EPROM OTP memory.

Pricing begins at $0.62 in quantities of 10K.