Microcontroller Applications -> Microcontrollers craft a networked future

To achieve those additional capabilities and move them into the market as fast as possible, developers are weighing a range of alternatives. Ubicom Inc., whose new Internet controller architecture is described in an article in this report, has moved quickly to respond to that opportunity, shifting from a traditional microcontroller emphasis with a focus on the application to one in which the aim is to provide sufficient processing power for both control and network access.

Fueling the connectivity trend happening in the microcontroller realm requires some strategic thinking, says Rene Mitchell, market development manager at Motorola. What's needed is a synergy of embedded, broadband, wireless and Internet design resources.

The approach the company has always taken is to use the most advanced semiconductor process technology to achieve not higher densities, but higher speed, according to Bulent Celebi, Ubicom's chief executive officer and president. Taking advantage of the additional clock speed overhead in a 50- or 100-MHz controller, Celebi said, a developer can implement the functions needed in software rather than wait for a microcontroller supplier to come up with a specific solution or make do with an existing device and some additional external functions.

At the other end of the spectrum is IpSil Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.). Where Ubicom is supplying the various elements in the form of predefined software "ipModules," Ipsil has developed a silicon intellectual-property solution in the form of predesigned functional blocks written in VHDL that will be sold to microcontroller manufacturers. The blocks are to be built using the company's Flowstack architecture, which offers the promise of delivering a fully standards-compliant implementation of TCP/IP in fewer than 5,000 gates.

That approach will drive the cost of adding such functionality to a microcontroller to well under $1, the sweet spot of this market, said company founder H. "Shri" Shrikumar.

The company is already delivering TCP/IP software development kits with microprocessors preprogrammed with the Flowstack TCP/IP stack. By October the company will have silicon and VHDL models of the architecture. "Within the next few years, a TCP/IP interface on a chip will become as commonplace and necessary as a serial interface is today," he said.

Traditional microcontroller vendors who have dominated this space since the early 1970s, such as Motorola, have taken note of the demand and are looking for ways to offer this additional connectivity as quickly as possible. Since the beginning of the year, said Rene Mitchell, market development manager in the Embedded Controller Division at Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector (Austin, Texas), the company has begun to roll out a whole new connectivity strategy that involves initially developing collateral material, actual code, development tools and platforms to speed design of connected microcontrollers. It also includes developing closer ties with software companies such as EmWare Inc., licensing its Embedded Micro Internetworking Technology software for use with Motorola's 8-bit 68HC08-based end products. It is also working with other hardware vendors in this market such as ConnectOne to supply the appropriate peripheral functionality to get an embedded developer up and connected as quickly as possible.

"Our vision here is to be the leader in embedded solutions in a connected world," she said, combining the company's efforts in embedded, broadband, wireless and Internet with a focus of providing connectivity to the person, workplace, home and auto. "Our idea is to provide seamless connectivity as someone moves from environment to environment." And because so much of the personal and workaday environment is pervaded with microcontrollers, the move is under way within Motorola to provide that necessary ubiquitous connectivity.

Connectivity everywhere

The division has been restructured, Mitchell said, to support connectivity at all levels and in all environments. Illustrative of the challenges, she said, are the issues that the company is struggling with in home networking. In this segment, it is only in the last six months that all the elements have begun to mesh. In the past, Motorola has established a leading pres ence in a lot of segments that meet in the home: in the 8-, 16- and 32-bit MCUs in the various household appliances, in the high-end processors in the set-top boxes that receive video, in the DSPs and network processors in the DSL gateways that bring broadband to the home and in processors for entertainment devices and games.

"What has been missing is some way to convert the cloud of disconnectivity between these various segments and create a seamless web of connectivity," Mitchell said. "This means also taking a firm lead in providing the software infrastructure-operating systems, tools and application programming interfaces."