In the bargain-basement microprocessor department, few parts have been more cheap and cheerful than microcontrollers, those simple computers on a chip that do anything from managing your washing machine program to timing the carburettor in your car and are also widely used in simple computer peripheral control applications. But Chandler, Arizona-based Microchip Technology Inc is set to make designers look at microcontrollers in a whole new light with the introduction of a pair of 8-bit RISC microcontrollers that it rates at 5 MIPS. The two variants are an EpROM and a one-time programmable version of the basic CMOS part, which includes 32 8-bit registers, a 16-bit timer-counter, a watchdog timer for when the parts are used in battery-driven devices, and an on-chip oscillator. The 18-pin PIC16C54 is $2.40 for 2,500-up, the 28-pin PIC16C55 is $2.95 in the same quantity, and the parts are shipping in volume now. The Pic Pak assembler and software simulator is $500, and Microindustrie of San Diego has a Pices III package, including an in-circuit emulator that plugs into a prototype for real-time emulation and symbolic debug at up to 20MHz. The package sells for $2,000.
