Nuvoton Technology Dusts Off the Classic 8051 Architecture for Its NuMicro MG51 Microcontrollers
Low-power parts, starting at $0.38 in tray quantities, offer a surprising array of peripheral connectivity.
Embedded electronics specialist Nuvoton Technology has announced the NuMicro MG51 Series of eight-bit microcontrollers — based on Intel's venerable 8051 architecture.
"Nuvoton Technology releases the enhanced 1T-8051 microcontroller series NuMicro MG51," the company announced of its latest microcontroller family, "tailored for applications such as home appliances, LED dimming, motor control, and industrial automation. MG51 is compatible with Keil C51, IAR EW8051, and NuEclipse SDCC development toolchains."
The NuMicro MG51 family, brought to our attention by CNX Software, offers a single microcontroller core running at up to 24MHz, up to 4kB of static RAM (SRAM) connected alongside 256 bytes of on-chip RAM, up to 64kB of flash storage, and 4kB of LDROM. Its architecture, meanwhile, has a lengthy history: it's a 1T-8051, an enhanced implementation of Intel's 8051 architecture, launched in 1980 with the Intel MCS-51 and designed to offer several times the performance of Intel's original and thus be able to run at slower speeds drawing less power — yet is claimed to be fully compatible with its predecessor.
Other features of the new parts include up to 12-channel pulse-width modulation (PWM), up to five UART, SPI, and I2C interfaces, a 15-channel 12-bit analog to digital converter with a 500 kilo-samples per second sampling rate, and up to 46 general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, model-dependent.
For security, Nuvoton promises three main mechanisms: flash lock bits to prevent firmware readout through ICP pins; a 128-byte security protection ROM (SPROM) which can be set as execute-only in "security mode" or used as data storage in "non-security mode"; and a 96-bit unique identifier (UID) plus a customizable 128-bit unique customer identifier (UCID).
The new parts are now available to order direct from Nuvoton , starting at $0.38 each in 2,000-chip tray quantities; the NuMaker-MG51FC and NuMaker-MG51LD development boards are available at $25 each, as a quick start to development with the chips.