Campbell, California-based Zilog Inc dominated the second-generation 8-bit microprocessor market with the Z80, but the company missed out on the 16-bit generation with the Z8000, failed completely with the 32-bit Z80000 and ever since has been living primarily off its Z80-derived Z8 line of microcontrollers. Five years ago, the company finally cut loose from its then parent, Exxon Corp, and its quest for a new role as a chipmaker finally seems to be bearing copious fruit – over the past few weeks the company has announced a whole string of innovative new products.
Modem controller integrates microprocessor with communications controller for faster transmission
Zilog Inc has produced a 33MHz version of the Z80182 modem controller desgined to provide increased horsepower for internal, external and PCMCIA modems to transmit at the V.Fast V.34 – speed. To communicate with slower modems, V.34 can negotiate all of its operating parameters such as signalling rate and frequency, at connect time. This enables two modems to match line conditions on a connection-by-connection basis, thereby increasing the chance of the slower modem operating at maximum speed on any given connection, says Zilog. The Z80182 integrates the static Z8S180 microprocessor core and the Z85230 Enhanced Serial Communications Controller by linking two channels, 24 bits of parallel input-output and a 16550 MIMIC for a direct interface connection to an AT bus. The ESCC, says Zilog, provides a highly flexible serial interface with the modem data pump and data terminal equipment. Data can be transferred to the data pump in asynchronous modes or can be set up for Synchronous Data Link Control. A second ESCC channel can be programmed in synchronous modes in order to interface with international V.25bis Data Terminal Equipment as well as standard personal computers. Zilog says the integrated design reduces board space and design time, and increases reliability. The 3.3V version is available for $13.83.
Extended data services chip enable broadcasters to print more on-screen
Zilog Inc has launched the Z86228 chip for Extended Data Services, aimed at television services on the information superhighways. Extended Data Services is designed to enable the viewer to see additional information to that offered by closed-captioning. With Extended Data Services local broadcasters can transmit information across the bottom of the television screen without interrupting the programme in progress. Zilog notes that the Z86228 is compatible with the company’s closed-captioning chip and conforms to recognised standards. For the existing Z86128 television manufacturers, the Z86228 can be incorporated with no hardware design modifications, says Zilog. The Z86228 is available for $2.95 in 10,000-up quantities. The Z8622800ZDP application board, now available for $150 contains an assembled circuit board, software and documentation to verify design performance and shorten development time.
Son of Z80 designed to upgrade and speed up parent’s embedded control applications in all peripherals
Zilog Inc has introduced the Z380, a 16-bit microprocessor based on Z80 architecture, with an internal 32-bit structure. The Z380 has four 32-bit-wide register banks to facilitate the fast context switching required for embedded control applications, says the company. According to Zilog, the Z380 can execute most instructions in two clock cycles and start the next instruction fetch while finishing execution of the current instruction. The Z380 includes six memory chip selects along with a programmable wait-state generator for each chip’s address range, dynamic random access memory refresh controller and an on-chip oscillator to reduce the system chip count. Offered for the Z380 is a Z80380000ZCO evaluation board, containing an assembled circuit board, Z80 cross assembler and linker-loader package. Third party vendor Sigma Designs Inc markets an emulator to develop, debug and analyse the Z380 – its Electronic Programmer’s Manual is an on-line programming tool that generates software initialisatio
n files or assembler tables to simplify code generation. Third party vendor PLC Corp markets an assembler and C compiler. The Z380 is available in a 5V version at 18MHz and 3.3V version at 10MHz for the power-sensitive applications. It is $10 for the 18MHz one when you order 100,000 or more.
Heat resistant packaging ready
Small Outline Integrated Circuit packaging and extended temperature ranges are now available for Zilog’s Z8 microcontroller family. The packaging can provide designers with a small form factor and functional flexibility at low cost, the firm says.
Pact with piano maker Gulbransen to make musical chips for desktop market
Zilog Inc has teamed up with Gulbransen Inc of San Diego, California, to build digital audio chip implementations based on the musical instrument maker’s wave synthesis technology. Under the agreement, Zilog will manufacture and sell wave synthesis chip sets to consumer markets, while Gulbransen, using Zilog’s production facilities, will do the same for the musical instrument market. Gulbransen says its wave synthesis technology produces higher quality audio than frequency modulation synthesis.
Signal processors offered as alternatives to embedded controllers
Zilog Inc has introduced three signal processing chips designed to replace embedded controllers. The Z89321, the Z89371 and the Z89391 are 16-bit fixed-point signal processors rated at 20 MIPs. They implement a modified Harvard architecture, which enables two data accesses and a program in a single cycle. The new family includes an on-board coder-decoder interface with a dedicated counter-timer to support digital audio and voice data with higher speed transfer rates. A wait-state generator eliminates the need for external logic when interfacing to slower off-chip memory or peripherals, says Zilog. The Z89371 one-time programmable part is designed to enable the designer to verify software and hardware functionality by enabling program code corrections to be performed without committing to a masked read only memory device. For applications that use a signal processor as the central processor and the signal processing engine, the Z89391 can address up to 64K-words of program and data memory externally. The Z89321 is available for $2.95; the Z89391, $4.95, in OEM quantities.
