Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc has launched its fastest ever microcontrollers – actually derivatives of the highly integrated 80186 version of the 16-bit 8086 – for embedded applications, running at up to 40MHz. Previously, the company’s fastest chip ran at 25MHz. The increased speed means that when, for example, running a personal computer disk controller where disk access speeds are high and there are zero wait states, the microcontrollers can use slower and cheaper memory. There are two new microcontrollers, effectively upgrades to the existing AM186 and AM188 with which they are compatible. The company said users’ code written for the previous versions will execute on the new chips without alteration and will be much faster. The new pair, the 16-bit Am186EM and 8-bit Am188EM, offer a higher level of integration, reducing the need for peripheral components. Both microcontrollers come in very small packaging and are available in 100-pin thin quad flat pack and plastic quad flat pack. There is also a demonstration board for the new chips to enable benchmark testing, evaluation and the downloading of application code from a personal computer. The board, which costs $190, is also fitted with Flash memory, which enables downloaded code to reside on the board and be reprogrammed directly onto it. The microcontrollers go into volume production in August, and in quantities of 10,000 they cost $8.48 each for the 16-bit bus version, $8 for the 8-bit bus Am188EM.
