Motorola drives MCU, memory

Electronic News, Oct 14, 1996

Austin, Texas--Motorola is driving deeper into the microcontroller and memory markets, saying it intends to support Iomega Corp. with microcontroller (MCU) and manufacturing resources for Iomega's removable hard disk drives. In addition, Motorola's microcontroller technologies group (MCTG) has initiated an "MCUs-In-A-Day" program.

Meanwhile, the fast static RAM division expects to ship what it calls NetRAMs for the communications market, and to sample the MCM69C232 and MCM69C432 content addressable memories (CAM) shortly.

Regarding the Iomega/Motorola accord, Motorola was named as a key semiconductor supplier to the company and has agreed to provide silicon solutions for Iomega's removable drives.

Iomega's Jaz is a one-gigabyte, removable disk drive powered by Motorola's 68HC16Z1 (Z1) 16-bit microcontroller. Z1 serves as a general controller for the servo sequencer and SCSI interface to coordinate reads and writes of data to and from the disk. The Jaz drive is intended for storing data-intensive files, such as audio/visual, video and multimedia.

In a related development, Iomega is incorporating Adaptec's AIC-832x in its Jaz drive and will purchase Adaptec custom SCSI host adapters. Adaptec's AIC-832x product family provides the data path management/host interface silicon for Iomega's Jaz drive.

Motorola has also inaugurated an "MCU's-In-A-Day" program, which offers one-day shipment of Motorola's one time programmable (OTP) microcontrollers. If one-day shipment is not met, said the company, the programming is free.

The "MCU's-In-A-Day" program is intended to allow enrolled customers in North American markets the ability of changing production line runs by ordering parts that can be shipped the same day. Motorola said this program was developed in response to what it termed the growing importance of OTP microcontrollers to meet OEMs' immediate and critical product needs. "This program clearly shows our customers that we are well aware of what a difference a day makes to their business models," asserted Gary Daniels, senior VP and GM, MCTG.

In yet another development, Motorola's fast static RAM division debuted NetRAMs for the communications market. Four 1-megabit dual address NetRAMs will be introduced, including the 32K x 36 MCM69D536 with dual I/O, the MCM69Q536 32K x 36 with separate I/O, the 64K x 18 MCM69D618 with dual I/O, and the MCM69Q618 with separate I/O.

The company said it expects products to be ready for sampling 1Q97, with production beginning in the 2Q97. Pricing for either the x36 or x18 will be $35.00 in production quantities.

The fast static SRAM division also disclosed that it will release the MCM69C232 and MCM69C432 content addressable memories (CAM) designed specifically for internetworking applications that require high speed memory performance.

Samples for the MCM69C232 4K x 64 bit CAM will be available in January 1997, with production in April 1997. Volume pricing will be less than $20. The 16K x 64 bit MCM69C432 will be sampling in May of 1997, production in June. Volume pricing is expected to be less than $50.