FTD Embedded Microcontrollers

To date, if an application requires a small microcontroller, engineers have had no choice but to pick an "off the shelf" product. Most of these originate from old 8 bit CPU designs and programming them requires an intimate knowledge of their architecture and limitations. Often these are not optimised for the specific application and require a large amount of program space - expensive if for example the microcontroller and its ROM are embedded within an ASIC.

FTDI's new microcontroller development tools change all this by allowing the CPU's function ( OpCodes ) to be tailored specifically to the target application. For each application, our tools produce a CPU core customised to the application it is used for. This gives great code efficiency and saves on silicon cost.

As program memory (RAM) within an embedded CPU can execute as fast as traditional register operations, we dispense with the need for registers thus removing the need for an understanding of the architecture in order to program the controller.

PROGRAMMING EXAMPLE - Traditional CPU

• Mov Al,Var1; { Load a register with Var1 }
• Mov Bl,Var2; { Load another register with Var2 }
• Add Al,Bl; { Add the two registers together }
• Mov Al,Var3; { Store the result in Var3 }
• Code space = 7 bytes. Intimate knowlege of CPU architecture required.

PROGRAMMING EXAMPLE - FTDI Embedded CPU

• Var3 = Var1 + Var2 { The CPU can take 3 operands }
• Code space = 4 bytes. No intimate programming knowlege required.

• Easy to program, efficient Harvard Architecture CPU
• Up to 64k of code space ( ROM ), 256 bytes of data space ( RAM )
• Op Codes optimised to the application
• Single phase CPU clock at up to 33MHz clock rate
• Custom or standard peripherals - Serial IO, Parallel IO, Timers etc.
• Supplied stand alone or embedded with other control logic
• Package size of up to 208 pins available.

Anything requiring a small embedded CPU i.e. Consumer, Automotive etc.