A new family of microcontrollers simplify aerospace communications systems

Recent advances in very large scale integrated (VLSI) semiconductors have led to a family of advanced microcontrollers that can be of great benefit to designers of aerospace communications systems. This paper discusses some of the important technological breakthroughs made possible by the alliance of IBM, Motorola and Apple Computer, that culminated in the PowerPC microprocessor. This architecture is now being used in a new, powerful family of communications controllers that are described in this paper. The Motorola MPC860, also referred to as the Power QUICC, is a new family of high-speed communications controllers designed for a wide range of data communication applications. This family currently includes five devices. Typical aerospace applications include navigation and control systems, local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), bridges, routers and digital voice/data systems for aircraft and spacecraft. This new PowerPC-based family of microcontrollers can greatly improve and simplify the design of aerospace communications systems. The MPC860 family combines a PowerPC core processor in conjunction with a powerful communications module on the same die. The PowerPC, a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, is one of the most powerful processors available today. The communications processor, also of a RISC-based design, automatically handles various communication protocols. To help promote cost-effective designs, each chip includes additional system functions such as a memory controller and a PCMCIA interface. Members of the family offer various combinations of the number of serial communications channels (10 megabits per second each) and available communication protocols. This paper presents a brief review of the development of the PowerPC Architecture and describes the innovations made by the unique PowerPC design team composed of Apple, IBM and Motorola employees at the Somerset Design Center in Austin, Texas. The MPC860 is then described and a number of typical aerospace applications are explored.