Fujitsu Expands Lineup of Low Pin Count 8-bit Microcontrollers for Consumer Appliances

In recent years, there has been rapidly growing demand for low pin count 8-bit microcontrollers for use in home appliances such as white goods, water heaters, electric pots, de-humidifiers, and hair dryers. In response to these needs, Fujitsu Microelectronics has been providing a line-up of 8-pin, 16-pin, and 20-pin low pin count 8-bit flash microcontrollers in its F2MC-8FX family. The new MB95260H, MB95270H and MB95280H series are pin-compatible with previous MB95200 series products, with the addition of embedded dual-operation flash memory. This dual-operation flash provides memory for program data, as well as a memory area for data storage that eliminates the need for external E2PROM, and thus reduces total system cost.

In addition to their use as main microcontrollers, the three new series can be used as sub-microcontrollers. The new series also employ a single-line on-chip debug that uses only one pin on the microcontroller.

Key Features

1. Dual-operation flash memory
The new series include Fujitsu’s proprietary embedded dual-operation flash memory, which emulates E2PROM. The memory contains two regions, one for program storage, and another that can be used for data storage and acts as a substitute for E2PROM. This allows a reduction in system area and system cost, as an external E2PROM is not required.

2. High-performance flash memory

The microcontrollers incorporate Fujitsu’s high reliability, high-performance embedded flash memory that can be re-written 100,000 times and guaranteed to hold data for 20 years. A flash security function protects customers’ software from being read by unauthorised external programmes.

3. Reduced system cost due to integration of external components

Because the internal CR oscillating circuit and the low-voltage detection circuit are built into the microcontrollers, the need for an external oscillator and reset IC is eliminated, thus contributing to a reduction in overall system costs.

4. ‘Composite timer’ provides flexibility for system requirements

For the timer function in the embedded ‘composite timer’, depending on the program, a channel can be selected from any one of the following: pulse width modulation (PWM), pulse width counter (PWC), interval timer or input capture which measures interval times. This provides the flexibility to handle customers’ varying system requirements.