Motorola Inc has used the 68000 microprocessor core to create what sounds like a very attractive device – a single-chip communications controller that is designed to support five communications protocols, any three of them concurrently. The MC60302 is the second member of Motorola’s 68300 family of microcontrollers, and supports HDLC for X25 networks, SDLC for IBM’s SNA, DDCMP for DEC’s DECnet, plus bisync, UART for asynchronous communication, and V110 for transferring data between terminals running at different speeds. The chip has three synchronous communications channels, making it possible to use any three of the protocols concurrently. Designed for use in network gateways, bridges, multiplexers, switching equipment, packet assembler-disassemblers, concentrators, modems and input-output subsystems, the 68302 is seen as a key component in the thrust towards Integrated Services Digital Networks. As well as the 68000 core the part integrates a RISC communications processor to manage the three serial channels, and includes six direct memory access controllers for the three channels. A serial communication port provides a synchronous communications channel to other chips and there is 1,152 bytes of on chip memory, used as a memory-mapped register bank. The part, clocked at 16.67MHz with a 20MHz version planned for first quarter 1990, is to start sampling next month, with volume in the first half of 1990; samples are $55, and the 68302 in a surface mount package will be $25 in volume. In the meantime, there is a 68302ADS application development system now and Applied Microsystems Corp, Redmond, Washington has an emulator for the part as a member of its ES1800 family for delivery in fourth quarter at from $12,000, $8,000 if you already have an ES1800 which runs on MS-DOS, VAX, Sun and Apollo kit. And in Santa Clara, California, Microtec Research Inc has a version of its XRAY source-level debugger for the part. The toolkit, with ANSI C cross compiler, reloctable macro-assembler, linker and librarian is $3,500 for the MS-DOS version, $1,750 for those having Microtec C.
