World's Fastest 8051 IP Core from Digital Core Design is 29 times faster

Poland, Bytom -- March 30, 2015 -- Digital Core Design, an IP Core provider and System-on-Chip design laboratories from Poland, introduced the DQ8051 IP Core. DCD’s new extremely-fast 8051 MCU Core boasts a Dhrystone 2.1 performance rating of 0.27292 DMIPS/MHz, which therefore enables a 29.01 times speed-up over the original 80C51 chip operating at the same frequency. But the speed is not all, that’s why the DQ8051’s dynamic power consumption can be as low as 1.2µW/MHz. The same, it rivals not only all other 8051-compatible cores but also low-power 32-bit processors.

The 8051, apart from the fact that it was first introduced more than 30 years ago, is believed to be one of the most popular, or even the most popular microcontroller core in history. Many engineers have a lot of expertise with this CPU and there’s a great amount of legacy code and 8051-based tool chains around. But comparison between 8051 from 1981 with e.g. the DQ8051 from 2015 is worth as much as the comparison between first gasoline engine and modern hybrid engines.

– Using our fifteen years of experience on the market, we’ve mastered a great portfolio of 8051 IP Cores – says Piotr Kandora, Vice President at Digital Core Design – if our DT8051 is the World’s smallest 8051, then the DQ8051 is the World’s fastest 8051 for sure. The nearest competition stopped at 26x, with the power consumption almost two times higher than DCD’s.

DCD’s DQ8051 Dhrystone score rates at 29.01x the original at the same frequency, with the size of 7.5k gates. The nearest solution consumes almost 12k gates and achieves not more than 26x speed improvement. But the speed or power consumption is not all – adds Kandora. That’s why the DQ8051 is available with USB, Ethernet, I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, LIN, HDLC, Smart Card interfaces. The core is also equipped with DoCD^TM hardware debugger with unique Instruction Smart Trace technology. IST doesn’t capture addresses of all executed instructions, but only these related to the start of tracing, conditional jumps and interrupts. This method not only saves time but also allows improving the size of the IST buffer and extending the trace history. Captured instructions are read back by DoCD-debug software, analyzed and then presented to the user as ASM code and related C lines.

The DQ8051 is delivered with fully automated testbench and complete set of tests, allowing easy package validation at each stage of SoC design flow. This MCU IP Core is technology independent, that’s why it can be used in both ASIC and FPGA technologies.

DQ8051’s movie & presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKVuxJXa7C0

More information: http://dcd.pl/ipcore/197/dq8051/

Key Features

• 100% software compatible with 8051 industry standard
• Quad-Pipelined architecture enables to run 29.01 times faster, than the original 80C51 at the same frequency
• Up to 27.297 VAX MIPS at 100 MHz
• 24 times faster multiplication
• 12 times faster division
• 2 Data Pointers (DPTR) for faster memory blocks copying
  • Advanced INC & DEC modes
  • Auto-switch of current DPTR
• Up to 256 bytes of internal (on-chip) Data Memory - IDM
• Up to 64k bytes of Program Memory
• Up to 16 MB of external (off-chip) Data Memory - XDM
  • Synchronous interface for up to 64K bytes of (on-chip) fast external Data Memory - (SXDM)
• User programmable Program Memory Wait States solution - for wide range of memories' speed
• User programmable External Data Memory Wait States solution - for wide range of memories' speed
• De-multiplexed Address/Data bus - to allow easy memory connection
• Interface for additional Special Function Registers
• Fully synthesizable
• Static synchronous design
• No internal tri-states
• Scan test ready
• USB, Ethernet, I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, LIN, HDLC, Smart Card interfaces available

Information about Digital Core Design:

The company founded in 1999, since the beginning stands in the forefront of the IP Core market. High specialization and profound customer service enabled to introduce more than 70 different architectures. Among them is the world’s fastest 8051 IP Core, the DQ80251, which is more than 66 times faster than the standard solution. As an effect, over 300 hundred licensees have been sold to more than 500 companies worldwide. Among them are the biggest enterprises like e.g. Sony, Siemens, General Electric and Toyota. But a lot of DCD’s customers are small businesses, R&D laboratories or front/back end offices, which require exact solution tailored to their project needs. Rough estimations say that more than 270 000 000 devices around the globe have been based on Digital Core Design’s IP Cores.