Introducing the High-Speed 50MHz 8051 MCUs: Power and Performance Combined

Silicon Labs Introduces New Family of 8-bit Microcontrollers

Silicon Labs has developed a family of 8-bit microcontrollers based on its 8051-based CIP-51 core, operating at a clock speed of 50MHz.

"The BB5 family offers voltage options ranging from 1.8 to 5.5V, enabling them to have a long lifespan in the field when powered by a coin-cell battery," stated the company. "Additionally, they are available in various package sizes. The BB50 measures 2 x 2mm, while the BB51 and BB52 are 3 x 3mm, providing additional GPIOs and enhanced analog functionality."

The main distinction among these three sub-families lies in the analog peripherals. The BB2 is the superset, featuring a 12-bit ADC, two comparators, and a 10-bit DAC. The BB51 lacks the DAC, and the BB50 further eliminates the comparators. All three variants include a programmable internal reference (ranging from 1.2 to 2.4V), a reference input, and a "fast-settling" (maximum 5µs) adjustable internal voltage reference (ranging from 1.2 to 1.8V).

The CIP-51 core is a pipelined architecture capable of achieving a peak throughput of 50Mips with its 50MHz clock. "Any standard 803x/805x assemblers and compilers can be used for software development," the company confirmed. "CIP-51 implements the standard 8051 organization and peripherals, along with additional custom peripherals and functions."

Extensions to the microcontrollers include power management modes, such as a 10µA snooze mode with a 30µs wake time, debug logic, interrupt handler extensions, and security features for program and data memory.

The microcontrollers offer up to 29 I/O pins (depending on the package) and include various peripherals, such as a temperature sensor, a three-channel programmable counter array with PWM capability, a three-channel PWM engine with dead-time insertion, 4x 16-bit timers, 2x 8-bit timers, 2x UART, 2x SMBus/I2C, SPI (with 4-byte FIFO), 4x configurable logic units, and crossbar pin mapping.