Motorola Inc’s High Performance Embedded Systems Division in Austin has now formally announced that DragonBall microprocessor that is the subject of its Personal Communicator agreement with Samsung Electronics Co (CI No 2,672), suggesting that the chip is a development of the Dragon processor in Motorola’s own Envoy Communicator. Called the M68328, it is a low-power, low-cost chip designed specifically to meet the demands of the consumer electronics market. It has full 68000 f amily compatability and is targeted at electronic organisers, dictionaries, mobile navigation systems, handheld video games and personal data communicators. It was developed by the Portable Systems Operation unit that was formed to develop and support a full line of integrated microprocessors, tools and enabling software designed specifically for the Personal Digital Assistant market. Samsung’s device will feature a built-in pager, personal information management software, pen-based handwriting recognition and high-speed data and facsimile modem that can be extended for future wireless data communications networks. DragonBall integrates a liquid crystal diode display controller, a display panel communications interface, a real time clock, two timers and Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter to support infra-red communication, master and slave serial peripheral interfaces for pen input or to control other serial peripherals, and a pulse width modulator to generate tones or melodies with the 68000 core. It has three power-saving modes with fully static design so that individual peripherals can shut off when idle or any time it is not in use. The display controller uses system memory and requires no dedicated video memory, and provides gray levels and can interface with most of the liquid crystal panels currently available. Fabricated in 0.65 micron HCMOS, it has a 3.3V operating voltage and comes in a 144-pin thin quad flat pack. It is sampling now with volume production set for the fourth quarter and is $15 when you order 10,000.
