Matt Bonner wrote:
> 
> Tjaart van der Walt wrote:
> >
> > Nope. It would be called the 16C874. Mchip wisely decided
> > to go for the flash version of the 16C77 first. It is
> > called the 16C877 and beta samples are rumoured to be
> > doing the rounds. It will cost more or less the same as
> > a small passenger vehicle (20% more than the vanilla
> > 16C77).
> >
> Have they relaxed any specs on the flash part?  Most importantly (to me)
> - do they still have a 125 degC version?

I think (this is probably how a romour starts;) ) they are 
trying out new technology for the new flash parts, because 
the old technology (aka 16F84) could not get quite up to a 
decent clock speed (10MHz is DC), and to put RAM and EEPROM 
on the same chip was expensive. I could be completely wrong. 

With, errrm, certain vendors flogging flash parts that are 
shitfast and at the same price as the 16F84, I suppose Mchip 
had to speed up the release of their own flash parts.

I guess what I am waffling on about is that it would be 
mostly unproven technology for now from the point of view of 
temperature range, supply voltage range, programming 
stability, reliable clock speed, and data retention. Before 
using them, I'd be sure to test the brown-out and power-up reset. 

On the other hand, if they cost 1c more than the current 
OTP's, I won't even bother with the tests. In that case we'd 
probably drop Mchip on the higher end products were we are not 
using (the much better priced - hint, hint) Motorola yet.

It would be interesting to get to hear all the politics 
that surrounded the issue of getting the flash technology. 
Anyone?

-- 
Friendly Regards          /"\
                          \ /
Tjaart van der Walt        X  ASCII RIBBON CAMPAIGN
mailto:tjaart@wasp.co.za  / \ AGAINST HTML MAIL

|--------------------------------------------------|
|                WASP International                |
|R&D Engineer : GSM peripheral services development|
|--------------------------------------------------|
|SMS mailto: tjaart@sms.wasp.co.za  (160 chars max)|
|     http://www.wasp.co.za/~tjaart/index.html     |
|Voice: +27-(0)11-622-8686  Fax: +27-(0)11-622-8973|
|          WGS-84 : 26¡10.52'S 28¡06.19'E          |
|--------------------------------------------------|