Despite the lack of any block-busting design wins for the Motorola Inc 88000 RISC from computer manufacturers – Data General Corp is probably the biggest – the future of the microprocessor is now guaranteed for the indefinite future following a contract awarded to the Schaumberg, Illinois company by the Ford Motor Co to develop a microcontroller version of the part that will become the Dearborn, Michigan automaker’s standard device for engine and transmission control. Ford currently uses Intel Corp microcontrollers for the function, making the contract a knock-out design win for Motorola; it is also said to be the first time a car maker has moved to RISC for control functions. The importance of the deal is underlined by the fact that back in the 8-bit generation, although the Motorola 6800 was very much an also-ran as a CPU, Motorola claimed to have shipped substantially more 6800s than Zilog Corp shipped Z80 because so many 6800s went into vehicles. The contract with Ford should enable Motorola to cost-justify continued development of the CPU version of the microprocessor indefinitely even if it fails to win any industry leaders to the part, and give software developers confidence to continue to do versions of their applications for it. The 88000 has another string to its bow too, because it has has won early interest from telephone exchange manufacturers.
