As well as its MPC821 embedded PowerPC for handhelds (CI No 2,735), Motorola Inc also has a new MPC860 PowerQUICC Quad Integrated Communications Controller, effectively a PowerPC counterpart to its 16-bit 68000-derived 68302, and destined to find itself at the heart of Ethernet bridges, routers, PABX switches, PC Cards and Groupe Speciale Mobile cellular base-stations and the like. There are actually five chips in the new family, all conforming to the same architecture. Like the MPC821, the 860s have a PowerPC core with a separate RISC-based communications processor module, plus loads of support circuitry. The PowerPC core looks similar to the MPC821’s. It is said to deliver the same 52 Dhrystone MIPS at 40MHz or 33 MIPS at 25MHz. At the slower speed the chip draws less than 330mW. The separate communication processor module contains either two or four serial communication controllers depending on the model, each of which can run a separate communication protocol. It also has 16 serial Direct Memory Access controllers, two serial management controllers, serial peripheral interface and multiply-accumulate function for signal processing work. The chip, says Motorola, is quite capable of implementing high-speed modem communication, handling simultaneous voice and data and running local to wide area net interconnection. The five different models of the MPC860 family have different combinations of Ethernet and protocol support. The PowerQUICC controllers are sampling in small quantities now, with general sampling from first quarter 1996, volume in the second quarter. An application developmentsystem, including a board for Windows or Sun-4 system sells for $3,000.
