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A microcontroller is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of ferroelectric RAM, NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a small amount of RAM. Microcontrollers are designed for embedded applications, in contrast to the microprocessors used in personal computers or other general purpose applications consisting of various discrete chips.
PowerPC is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM. PowerPC, as an evolving instruction set, has been named Power ISA since 2006, while the old name lives on as a trademark for some implementations of Power Architecture–based processors.
The Motorola 68000 series is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors. They were best known as the processors used in the early Apple Macintosh, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, the Sinclair QL, the Atari ST, the Sega Genesis, the Capcom System I (Arcade), the AT&T UNIX PC, the Tandy Model 16/16B/6000, the Sun Microsystems Sun-1, Sun-2 and Sun-3, the NeXT Computer, NeXTcube, NeXTstation, and NeXTcube Turbo, the Texas Instruments TI-89/TI-92 calculators, the Palm Pilot and the Space Shuttle. Although no modern desktop computers are based on processors in the 680x0 series, derivative processors are still widely used in embedded systems.
The Freescale 683xx is a family of compatible microcontrollers by Freescale that use a Motorola 68000-based CPU core. The family was designed using a hardware description language, making the parts synthesizable, and amenable to improved fabrication processes, such as die shrinks.
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedded and communications markets. It was bought by a private investor group in 2006, and subsequently merged into NXP Semiconductors in 2015.
PowerPC G4 is a designation formerly used by Apple and Eyetech to describe a fourth generation of 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors. Apple has applied this name to various processor models from Freescale, a former part of Motorola. Motorola and Freescale's proper name of this family of processors is PowerPC 74xx.
The MPC5xx family of processors such as the MPC555 and MPC565 are 32-bit PowerPC embedded microprocessors that operate between 40 and 66 MHz and are frequently used in automotive applications including engine and transmission controllers. Delphi Corporation use either the MPC561 or MPC565 in the engine controllers they supply to General Motors, with nearly all 2009 model GM North America vehicles now using an MPC5xx in the engine controller. Bosch also used the MPC5xx throughout the ME(D)-9 series of Gasoline Engine Controllers, EDC-16 series of Diesel Engine Controllers as did the Cummins B series diesel engine ECU.
QUICC. The original QUICC was the 68k-based Motorola 68360. It was followed by the PowerPC-based PowerQUICC, PowerQUICC II, PowerQUICC II+ and PowerQUICC III. Early chips used a separate RISC engine to control the serial interfaces, enhancing performance in these slower speed designs. The PQ2+ and PQ3 designs were the first in this family to offer Gigabit Ethernet speeds using more conventional ethernet controllers without the need for a RISC co-processor.
PowerQUICC is the name for several PowerPC- and Power ISA-based microcontrollers from Freescale Semiconductor. They are built around one or more PowerPC cores and the Communications Processor Module which is a separate RISC core specialized in such tasks such as I/O, communications, ATM, security acceleration, networking and USB. Many components are System-on-a-chip designs tailor-made for embedded applications.
Background debug mode (BDM) interface is an electronic interface that allows debugging of embedded systems. Specifically, it provides in-circuit debugging functionality in microcontrollers. It requires a single wire and specialized electronics in the system being debugged. It appears in many Freescale Semiconductor products.
The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened in 1992 and its goal was to make the first PowerPC processor and then keep designing general purpose PowerPC processors for personal computers. The first incarnation became the PowerPC 601 in 1993, and the second generation soon followed with the PowerPC 603, PowerPC 604 and the 64-bit PowerPC 620.
The PowerPC e200 is a family of 32-bit Power ISA microprocessor cores developed by Freescale for primary use in automotive and industrial control systems. The cores are designed to form the CPU part in system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs with speed ranging up to 600 MHz, thus making them ideal for embedded applications.
The PowerPC 5000 family is a series of PowerPC and Power ISA microprocessors from Freescale and STMicroelectronics designed for automotive and industrial microcontroller and system on a chip (SoC) use. The MPC5000 family consists of two lines that really don't share a common heritage.
The PowerPC e500 is a 32-bit microprocessor core from Freescale Semiconductor. The core is compatible with the older PowerPC Book E specification as well as the Power ISA v.2.03. It has a dual issue, seven-stage pipeline with FPUs, 32/32 KiB data and instruction L1 caches and 256, 512 or 1024 KiB L2 frontside cache. Speeds range from 533 MHz up to 1.5 GHz, and the core is designed to be highly configurable and meet the specific needs of embedded applications with features like multi-core operation interface for auxiliary application processing units (APU).
The PowerPC e300 is a family of 32-bit PowerPC microprocessor cores developed by Freescale for primary use in system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs with speed ranging up to 800 MHz, thus making them ideal for embedded applications.
QorIQ is a brand of ARM-based and Power ISA–based communications microprocessors from NXP Semiconductors. It is the evolutionary step from the PowerQUICC platform, and initial products were built around one or more e500mc cores and came in five different product platforms, P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5, segmented by performance and functionality. The platform keeps software compatibility with older PowerPC products such as the PowerQUICC platform. In 2012 Freescale announced ARM-based QorIQ offerings beginning in 2013.
The 9S08 is an 8-bit microcontroller (µC) family originally produced by Motorola, later by Freescale Semiconductor, and currently by NXP, descended from the Motorola 6800 microprocessor. It is a CISC microcontroller. A slightly extended variant of the 68HC08, it shares upward compatibility with the aging 68HC05 microcontrollers, and is found in almost any type of embedded systems. The larger members offer up to 128 KiB of flash, and 8 KiB of RAM via a simple memory management unit (MMU) which allows bank-switching 16 KiB of the address space and an address/data register pair which allows data fetches from any address. The paging scheme used allows for a theoretical maximum of 4 MB of flash.
References
- Freescale Semiconductor MC68360 QUad Integrated Communications Controller User's Manual, 1995.
- Freescale Semiconductor PowerPC MPC823 Reference Manual, revision 1, section 1.2.3 Communication Processor Module, page 1–9, 2000.
- Freescale Semiconductor Application Note 2045: CPM/CPU Interaction
- Freescale Semiconductor Application Note 2050: QUICC/PowerQUICC Differences