Out in Front: November 9, 1995

In a continued effort to simplify OEM designs, National Semiconductor has made its entire COP8 product line available with one-time-programmable (OTP) memory. Additionally, the company is claiming leadtimes averaging only two to four weeks. The move toward OTP represents a continued trend in the µC industry. For example, 90% of Microchip’s PIC devices are available as OTP, and almost 100% of Philips’ µCs are available as OTP. Even Motorola has become more aggressive in OTP—with a different strategy from that of the µC vendors, however. Only 10% of Motorola’s µC products support OTP, and these products are typically superset implementations of a product line. You may perceive OTP products primarily as prototypes. Many OEMs, however, use OTPs for high-volume manufacturing because OTPs allow flexibility for continually improving code or for product variation.

COP8 features low-EMI-emission circuits, an efficient instruction set, high integration, and low cost. National also provides compiler and emulator support for the µCs and an evaluation and programming unit (EPU), which sells for approximately $100. —by Markus Levy

National Semiconductor, Santa Clara, CA. (800) 272-9949.