NEC Electronics introduces its new 78K0 F_Line 8-bit microcontroller family for automotive body electronics

NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723) and its subsidiary in Europe, NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH, today announced the availability of its new 78K0 F_Line microcontroller family. The 78K0 F_Line targets the low-end to mid-range automotive body control market, such as mirror control, door modules, and sun roof control. Based on NEC’s 78K0 8-bit microcontroller family, these controllers are a logical development of the well-known 32-bit V850 F_Line towards smaller package and memory size to support applications with lower complexity at reduced cost.

The 78K0 F_Line includes flash microcontrollers with 44-pin, 64-pin and 80-pin QFP packages, all available with 0.5 mm and 0.65 mm pin pitch. Memory sizes vary from 32 to 60 Kbytes flash, and up to 3 Kbytes RAM. Derivatives with up to 128 Kbytes flash are planned as a next step.

The on-chip peripherals of the 78K0 F_Line take into account the particular requirements of automotive body control applications. For instance, the 80-pin device provides as many as sixteen 10-bit A/D converter channels for processing analog signals. The flexible timer structure is identical for all 78K0 F_Line devices and comprises two 16-bit timers, four 8-bit timers, a watchdog timer and a watch timer that allows software implementation of a real-time clock.

All controllers incorporate NEC Electronics’ advanced Full-CAN (aFCAN) unit supporting 16 RX/TX message buffers. To interface with subcontrollers, the 78K0 F_Line has two dedicated LIN UARTs. System costs are reduced significantly by useful on-chip features such as power-on-reset, low-voltage indicator, and a 240 kHz internal oscillator. The internal oscillator can serve as clock source for the internal watchdog, eliminating the need for external logic. Moreover, it can be combined with a clock monitor to supervise the main oscillator. In contrast to previous 78K0 8-bit devices, the main clock frequency has been increased to 16 MHz.

Hardware and software debugging of the entire 78K0 F_Line family is handled by a single PC-based in-circuit emulator called the IECube.  IECube uses a standard USB interface for communication with the PC. A low-cost tool, the MiniCube, that makes use of the on-chip debug functionality of a dedicated F_Line device is also available.

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