In what it says is an automotive industry first, Motorola unveiled on Monday an embedded processor that includes 1 MB of flash EEPROM memory. The MPC565 was developed for harsh environments -- under the hood, on the engine block, and inside the transmission on certain new gearbox applications -- that require very rugged memory and processor technology. It offers a high-performance 56-MHz PowerPC core and advanced peripheral features in a single silicon chip.

The new microcontroller extends Motorola's portfolio of high-power embedded units, which began with the MPC555 that debuted this year in a number of new car models. Motorola was careful to ensure software compatibility with the new processor. In fact, Visteon engineers were able to upgrade a vehicle powertrain from the MPC555 to a MPC565 in a matter of weeks, becoming the first in the world to run a vehicle using the latest product.

The MPC565 is manufactured with Motorola's latest 0.25u embedded nonvolatile memory wafer process. Its logic core operates on a 2.6-V supply, while its peripherals maintain their compatibility with external voltages up to 5.0 V. The internal flash memory is divided into two blocks of 512 KB, with an additional 46 KB of fast static RAM, a four-bank external memory controller, and extensive I/O features. Each of the unit's three Timer Processor Units (TPU3) has a 32-bit MicroRISC engine capable of processing 28 million instructions per second. The MPC565 is also Motorola's first device to feature a full Class 3 Nexus debug and calibration port.

The new product is the first member of Motorola's 0.25u PowerPC family for automotive powertrain applications. A number of future derivatives are already in development and their production is expected to be announced during the next few months. Motorola expects to introduce variants using the latest code compression technology, which can allow internal memory to be expanded by up to 45%.