MCUs Deliver 70% Speed Boost October 2006 Issue Published Date: October 12, 2006
Offering a 70% speed increase over the company's previous SH7263 devices, five recently introduced SuperH microcontrollers employ 200-MHz, 32-bit SH-2A CPU cores with a floating-point unit and include a USB 2.0 host interface. They also integrate an LCD controller, CD-ROM decoder, audio peripherals, and other functions. In terms of speed performance, the MCUs deliver 480 MIPS and 400 MFLOPS. The host interface supports the USB standard v2.0 High-Speed specification, and the display controller supports color LCD panels up to WVGA. The devices also support digital audio CODEC middleware formats, including MP3, WMA, and AAC. The SH2A-FPU instruction set in the SH7263 and SH7203 is upward compatible with those of the SH-2A and SH-2 CPU cores. Additionally, ROM code efficiency has been improved by approximately 75% compared with the SH-2 core, making it possible to reduce program size by about 25%. Sample prices for the SH7263 and SH7203 range from $16.90 to $19.60 each. RENESAS TECHNOLOGY AMERICA INC., San Jose, CA. (408) 382-7407.
