1998-10-07 , S/IC-2042/45
Product News From Philips Semiconductors

Devices offer more flexibility and operate at high speeds to reduce designers' time to market

Philips Semiconductors, the world's third largest provider of non-volatile microcontrollers, today expanded its popular 89C52, 89C54 and 89C58 derivatives give designers the flexibility to re-code their microcontrollers multiple times in-system and at any point during manufacturing, which significantly reduces time-to-market and manufacturing costs. Additionally, the new devices operate up to 33 MHz, which makes them among the fastest flash  80C51 microcontrollers currently available.

"In this competitive industry, we understand our customers require more flexibility, improved inventory control with lower costs, and decreased time-to-market," said Geoff Lees, director of marketing for Philips Semiconductors Microcontroller Business Line. "These new microcontrollers reflect our commitment to enhance our products continually and provide the latest technologies to meet existing and future customer needs."

The 89C51, 89C52, 89C54 and 89C58, with 4K, 8K, 16K and 32K bytes of flash program memory, respectively, are based on the world's most popular 8-bit architecture, the 80C51. The 89C51 offers 128 bytes of RAM and the other three devices offer 256 bytes. Philips Semiconductors' wide variety of MTP flash microcontrollers give designers the ability to upgrade their products immediately through simple software changes, shortening time-to-market and reducing costs by eliminating scrapped inventory. Because the devices are also completely performance compatible with Philips Semiconductors' one-time programmable (OTP), flash and ROM-based microcontrollers, existing customers can move their applications between versions without any degradation or significant change to application performance.

The four new microcontrollers will be available worldwide later this year through Philips Semiconductors' sales offices and its extensive distribution network. Pricing for the 89C51 starts at US$ 2.68 for quantities of 1000. For more information and questions on these products,  email or call 1-800-447-1500, ext. 1623.

Philips Semiconductors is the world's leading supplier of the most popular 8-bit architecture, the 80C51, offering more than 100 derivatives. Cahners In-Stat Group, a high-technology market research firm in Scottsdale, Arizona, reported Philips Semiconductors' 80C51 sales of US$ 416 million in 1997, a 41 percent share of the 80C51 8-bit microcontroller market. Philips Semiconductors has recently extended this successful architecture into 16-bit performance with its XA families. Now customers can preserve their software, development tools and technology investment in the 80C51 while capitalizing on the 16-bit performance requirements in a market expected to double in the next two years.

Philips Semiconductors, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the ninth largest semiconductor supplier in the world and the third largest supplier of discretes in the world. Philips Semiconductors' innovations in digital audio, video, and mobile technology position the company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia and wireless communications markets. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world and are supported by systems labs.