Which microcontroller after 8051/8052 - Running products

[pramodjaipur]

Hi All,

I am not expert in embedded programming and hardware designing, but being working in the company since long,  I know more over all.

Presently we are using following components in hardware.

1.  80c32 / 8052 series microcontroller on 11.0592 MHz crystal.
2.  Code banking project - External EP-ROM 27SF010 (128K / 1M)
3.  External SRAM - Cy62C256 (32K)
4.  Serial RTC (HT1380)
5.  External Reset + watch dog (IN1232)
6.  Serial Port - max232
7.  Lot of Latch + Logic  (74HCT374,  74HCT245, 74HCT138, 74HCT00)
8.  Few VCC12V components -  ULN2003,  CD22100,  CD4504

Now software

1.  Written in C
2.  Own small RTOS for 8051 - written in C
3.  Large code for 8052  -  code banking and code size after compilation around 120K
4.  Software is moreover stable and running fine.

Need upgrade -  Why ?

Hardware side - 

Few components are EOL and not easily available,  thus price hike.   like SRAM,  EP-ROMs.  so we are planning to upgrade our hardware & software.  Which support our current requirements as well as cost saving.

1.  New microcontroller -  better than 8052,  best if it work on Vcc5V
2.  I2C interface for External EP-ROM (8 PIN) so that we will send the ep-rom at site for software upgrade if required.
3.  I2C for external SRAM so that we will keep lot of data.
4.  Reset,  Watchdog, External Crystal, RTC if available inbuilt - better.
5.  Uart 1 or more will be better.
6.  I/O pins should VCC 5V tolerance,  so that we will use Latch/ Logic  74HCT374 / 245 etc.  -  Not interested in xilinx FPGA (being difficult to service)
7.  Should support code more that 256K like <64K in 8052 restriction.  so that No-Code banking at all.

Yes,  it is commercial product so cost is major factor for decide,  but we can adjust if bit pricy.

Please suggest some written documents to read,  for upgrading 8052 to new microcontroller suggested if any

thanks in advance.

[pickit2]

funny I was talking to someone from work, while reading this post, and asked him what happened to a project he was updating, it was 5052 based, he said he went for 80C320, very little work was needed to get it out.
Time don't half fly he said, in passing "That was over 10 years ago"   

[pablo2048]

I suggest to turn into ARM family... Look at this:
http://rtcgroup.com/arm/2007/presentations/120%20-%20Making%20a%20Smooth%20Software%20Migration%20from%208051%20to%20ARM.pdf
I see only one problem - 5V Vcc is not common in ARM based CPU (but 5V tolerant I/O are Ok.).

[sam_des]

Hi,

Do you wish to stick with MCS-52 family ?
If not, Atmel's AVR may be good choice for you.

• 5V supply, so all I/O lines +5V tolerant.
• All I/o lines have internal pull ups and can drive LEDs directly.
• More than enough ROM/RAM for you requirements. Support external RAM if required.
• Multiple Serial Ports available. Serial ports have separate clock input, so you don't loose a timer as with 805x. Can support much higher Baud rates. Built in error detection, Frame Error/Parity
• I2C(TWI), SPI available separately.
• Built in brown out detect, but if independent power monitor might be required if your project has critical operation.
• ISP programming. DIY ISP programmer costs less than $8-10. Even a DIY JTAG debugger is also available.
• Boot loader facility. Can write to its own flash and upgrade the firmware over any interface you can think of.
• Nearly 1MIPS/1MHz. So most of your code will run faster compared to 805x, though there is no DIV instruction.
• Great C compiler, AVR-GCC is available for free and is supported by Atmel itself. Produces tight code.
• A free and reliable RTOS is available-FreeRTOS. FreeRTOS can be used in commercial apps.
• A very active user community, AVR Freaks.

Only few downsides,

• You will have to learn a new architecture, though AVR has pretty straight foward one
• You will have to learn gcc. Though AVR-Studio by Atmel takes care of the most of things though GUI.
• From h/w point of view, at the RAM/ROM size requirements, these chips will come only in SMD packages. Again TQFP packages are large enough to be hand-soldered.

Hope this helps,
sam_des

[solutions]

There are lots of that family of CPU still around...just because your manufacturer went EOL, doesn't mean people like Silicon Labs and others still don't have something close.

Some of the guys here will like to put on their girl clothes and cheerlead for their favorite processor, completely ignoring that you wrote this:

"I am not expert in embedded programming and hardware designing"

With that said, you're not going to save any money by taking on this project vs hiring someone to do it, IMO.

[Gallymimu]

Agreed,

There should be plenty of 8051/8052 clones and cores that are modern.

That said, I'm a PIC fanboy and would suggest a 16F for lower cost or a 24 series (both come in 5V and should have all the peripherals you were talking about)

here are some Ateml 8051 overviews you may want to look at:

http://www.atmel.com/products/microcontrollers/8051architecture/default.aspx

I think Atmel would sell a lot more processors if the sales engineers looked like that when wearing girl clothes!

[sgoum]

Take a look at cypress PSoc3

http://www.cypress.com/?id=2232&source=header

[pramodjaipur]

Thanks you all for your kind reply.

We are searching to change because of other peripheral components are going to EOL (SRAM, EEPROM, UART etc),  we are quite happy to see the performance of 8032 microcontroller,  and 8052 availability is very easy in low prices.

Its not that we are not getting the EOL parts,  but there is an price hike.

When we started our project <10 years back,  I found that Crypess semi discontinued SRAM CY62C256 in DIP package,  but still we are getting with new date code parts in low prices (Orignal),  some time it is under shortage, thus price increased.

But if we redesign all together new,  we will get new hardware benefit as well as software limitations removed (code banking,  less memory support < 64K) etc.

While upgrading,  we will not look updated 8051 core like dallas / cypress etc.

Thanks,  I am looking more options,  but what best I found till is ARM7 or Cortex M3 on price, performance availability, basis.

PIC 24 also have good option to migrate.

[zac]

Having had some experience with bank switching on the 8052, I think it is time to move to a more modern cpu once your code size approaches 64K.  Having to stay with 5V limits your choices so I would suggest redesigning for 3V I/O since you'll be doing a PCB spin anyway.  

The ARM and Cortex M3/M4 are probably overkill if everything is running well on an 8052.  If you're willing to consider a 3V CPU, you might consider TI's MSP430 which has up to 512KB of flash, 64KB sram, and some variants have a bit of non-volatile fram as well.  It will likely end up being cheaper with the internal memory replacing the external eprom and sram.  

http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/microcontroller/16-bit_msp430/overview.page

[zorx]

Please have a look at micro-controllers from Silicon Laboratories:

http://www.silabs.com

8051 family:
- very integrated (lots of peripherals)
- very fast (up to 100MIPS)


Regards

[Mentor]

Back in 2000 or 2001, I worked on the update of a project that used a 8051, UV-PROM (2764, 27168), RAM, some glue logic (7400 family) and other components like the ULN2003 that you mentioned. In fact that's a very tradicional 8051 kind of circuit.

So, back in that time we started to use the Atmel 8951 family, with builtin flash. I think that this was the part: http://www.atmel.com/devices/AT89S51.aspx

But now they have some even better ones, like this: http://www.atmel.com/devices/AT89C51RE2.aspx

Flash (Kbytes): 128 Kbytes
Pin Count: 44
Max. Operating Frequency: 60 MHz
CPU: 8051-12C
Max I/O Pins: 34
SPI: 1
UART: 2
SRAM (Kbytes): 8.25
Self Program Memory: API
Operating Voltage (Vcc): 2.7 to 5.5


To replace the 7400s and other logic we used the MAX 7000S family of CPLDs from Altera. I think that this family in particular did not exist anymore, but today I still have some MAX 3000A (they are 5V tolerant). They are cheap and you can make a programmer with a PC parallel port, a 74245 and some resistors. I like to use CPLDs when a FPGA will be too much overkill. Altera and Xilinx still have a lot of CPLDs availiable.

[digitalmg]

the best now is arm cortex platform, I do not understand why to use microcontrollers
designed in the 1990s

[Mentor]

The 8051s were launched in 1977

And why bother to change something that is working? In the end what matters is the cost and the profit.