NEC Electronics Introduces 14 New 8-bit MCUs for Automotive Dashboard Applications

Automotive sales in the emerging markets, including China, India and Brazil, have been showing strong growth buoyed by their continuous economic growth. NEC Electronics is offering these new products to support the manufacturers of small-cars and motorcycles as they capture accelerating consumer demand.

For over ten years, NEC Electronics has been providing MCU product offerings for automotive dashboards by integrating meter functionalities into its 8-bit 78K0 CPUs. To further address the customer demand, NEC Electronics revised the peripherals of the dashboard meters. NEC Electronics believes these new MCUs will promote expansion of its lineup of automotive MCUs for China and India.

Primary features of the new dashboard MCUs:

(1) Extensive variety of peripheral functions
NEC Electronics’ MCUs provide a rich set of new peripherals such as stepper motor driver/controller and increased the total number of timer channels from six to nine. Also included are LCD driver/controller, a CAN interface, and a sound generator all in a single chip, enabling system manufacturers to reduce external components and trim system development costs.

(2) Wide selection of products
NEC Electronics offers an extensive lineup of MCUs that differ by flash memory capacity, RAM capacity, necessity of CAN interface, number of stepping motor driver/controller channels and LCD drive/display capability. Designers can choose the optimum configuration for their applications.