What is a derivative microcontroller / derivative chip?
Submitted By: Craig Steiner FAQ Last Modified: 09/29/06
- A derivative microcontroller (or derivative chip) is a term used to refer to any of the hundreds of 8052-compatible microcontrollers produced by dozens of semiconductor firms such as Dallas Semiconductor, Philips, Atmel, etc. These lines of microcontrollers all use the "8052 core" licensed from Intel. The "core" refers to the instruction set and Special Function Register structure/map. If you have a development toolset that is 8052-compatible, you should be able to use that same toolset with any derivative chip.
What does the marking of 8052-derivatives mean?
Submitted By: Jan Waclawek FAQ Last Modified: 09/29/06
- The marking used by other companies usually contains the "51" or "52" digit-pair, but generally, there are no defined rules for the marking. However, sometimes, the following common points can be found in the marking (don't take these for rules, just as a clue):
- the second digit indicates the type of program memory:
- 0 as in 8051 - maskROM
- 7 as in 8751 - EPROM
- 9 as in 89C51 - FLASH
- 0 as in 8051 - maskROM
- the third digit is 3 for ROMless versions (i.e. 8031/8032)
- the fourth (and sometimes fifth) letter sometimes indicates the amount of program memory in 4kB, e.g. 89C55 has 5*4kB=20kB FLASH
- if there is one ore more letter(s) between the second and third digit, it indicates
- C - CMOS part (today, all new parts are CMOS, so this gets a bit useless)
- V or L - low voltage (3V) part
- S - serially programmable part
- LP - low pin count part
- C - CMOS part (today, all new parts are CMOS, so this gets a bit useless)
Some manufacturers chose to create marking for their 8051-derivative line by adding to the "generic" xx89C51 a suffix, indicating the properties of the part and belonging to a certain subfamily, e.g. xx89C51Rx2, C8051Fxxx. Another manufacturers use a completely different marking, e.g. ADuC8xx, uPSD3xxx.
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