Infineon Expands Microcontroller Product Line; Introduces 16-bit MCU Family Optimized for Price/Performance in Industrial Control Applications.

SAN FRANCISCO -- At the Embedded Systems Conference here today, Infineon Technologies (NYSE:IFX) (FWB:IFX) introduced a new family of application-specific 16-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) in its highly successful XC16x series. With a feature set and peripheral functions optimized for such industrial control applications as robotics, networked systems and electrical drive systems, the new family of MCUs achieves performance levels that match 32-bit MCUs now used in many of these applications, and can provide cost savings up to 30 percent compared to available alternatives.

Introducing these devices, Infineon is strengthening its position in the global market for general-purpose MCUs, which is forecast to grow by approximately two-thirds, to more than $22 billion annually, in the next four years (source: Gartner, Nov. 2004).

"The new 16-bit MCU family is our response to customer requests for solutions that are optimized for industrial control applications," said Chris Hegarty, vice president of the microcontroller group at Infineon Technologies. "Engineers that until now have had to use more expensive, general-purpose devices now can turn to an elegant, more-powerful implementation of an industry-standard architecture. This fully meets our goal of providing first-class products featuring excellent real-time performance, powerful peripheral sets and a cost point that is very attractive for product developers."

With prices approaching $5.00 in production volumes, the new XC164S/D/N MCUs offer system designers a choice of features for industrial control applications, including on-chip A/D converters or CAN (Controller Area Network) interfaces and either 64K-byte or 128K-byte Flash memory. Smart peripheral functions, such as capture/compare, CAN controller and MAC (multiply/accumulate) units, offload tasks from the core processor and free-up compute cycles. Additionally, the MCU bus structure allows concurrent operation of several chip subsystems, contributing to a 2x improvement in performance compared to current 16-bit MCUs. Overall, this flexibility and performance contribute to lower system prices for a wide range of applications, such as card readers, security systems, white goods, home automation, office equipment such as printers and copiers, and scales and conveyer belts in the industrial environment.

Technical Information on the XC164S/D/N 16-Bit Microcontrollers

The XC164S/D/N family comprises twelve single-chip CMOS microcontrollers. With clock speeds of 20 MHz or 40 MHz, XC164 devices achieve up to 40 MIPS (million instructions per second) performance and overall strong performance on application-specific benchmarks. In addition to its motor-control-specific features, the XC164S has a 10-bit A/D (analog-to-digital) converter with 14 multiplexed input channels to support fast, parallel data acquisition. The XC164D features an integrated TwinCAN module that handles the completely autonomous transmission and reception of CAN frames in accordance with the CAN specification V2.0 part B (active). The entire family of MCUs is pin-compatible, providing additional flexibility to scale memory size and performance across a number of end products.

The architecture of the XC164S/D/N includes a 5-stage execution pipeline with 2-stage instruction-fetch, a 16-bit ALU (arithmetic and logic unit), a 32-bit/40-bit MAC and a register file providing three register banks. CAPCOM (capture/compare) units support generation and control of timing sequences on up to 32 channels, and are typically used to handle such high-speed I/O tasks as pulse and waveform generation, pulse width modulation, and software timing.

Like all XC16x MCUs, the new family incorporates a powerful OCDS (On-Chip Debug System) capability to help speed system design and test, and a comprehensive development tool chain. Additional standard features include a powerful interrupt control unit, and an on-chip PLL (phase-locked loop) as part of the clock-generation circuitry.

Price and Availability

Samples of the XC164S/D/N microcontrollers are available now, packaged in a 100-pin MQFP package. The XC164N with 64K Flash memory is priced at $8.50 in sample quantities.

Growing MCU Portfolio

At the Embedded Systems Conference this week, Infineon also introduced a new addition to its 8-bit Flash microcontroller family. The XC866-2FR combines a high-performance 8051-compatible core with on-chip Flash memory and powerful peripherals. With fast instruction cycle times (75 ns to 150ns) and a Flash memory capacity of up to 8K bytes, this new device can reduce system costs by 50 percent compared to previously available 8-bit solutions.

Samples of the XC866-2FR are also available now in a green (lead-free) P-TSSOP-38 package for industrial and automotive temperature ranges. In quantities of 10,000, the XC866-2FR is priced at less than $1.30.

Today's announcements follow new product introductions made two weeks ago (see Feb. 22 news release at www.infineon.com/news), including two new 32-bit products and a new family of 8-bit Flash MCUs. Further information on Infineon's portfolio of microcontrollers is available at www.infineon.com/microcontroller.

About Infineon

Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for automotive, industrial and multi-market sectors, for applications in communication, as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In fiscal year 2004 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 7.19 billion with about 35,600 employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol:IFX). Further information is available at www.infineon.com.

This news release is available online at http://www.infineon.com/news/.