8051 Variants

Pramod Ranade

Introduction
8051 family of micro-controllers is the most popular 8 bit micro-controller family. Original 8051 introduced in 1981 by Intel. 8051 architecture included flexibility to include future enhancements. Today, hundreds of variants of 8051 are available.

New features and emerging trends in new 8051 variants:

More and more on-chip program memory

8K (AT89C52) 20K (AT89C55) 64K (P89C51RD2) >64K (for example, 96K in P89C669)

In-System-Programmable (ISP) flash program memory

Philips Dallas Analog Devices Many more

New features and emerging trends in new 8051 variants:

On-chip external data memory

1K (P89C51RD2) 8K (P89C668) Many more

Reduced pin count, for compact designs

AT89C2051 (20 pin package) Many more

Low voltage / low power consumption

Philips LPC family (2.7 to 3.3 Volts) Many more

New features and emerging trends in new 8051 variants:

More on-chip peripherals:

A-D converter (P8x552, ADuC8xx, more) PWM output (several manufacturers) D-A converter (ADuC8xx, more) Counters / timers / capture modules (several manufacturers) Watchdog timer (several manufacturers)

New features and emerging trends in new 8051 variants:

More speed, using various techniques:

Support for higher clock frequencies (upto 33 MHz) Less clocks per instruction Extra DPTR Math co-processor Combination of above techniques

New features and emerging trends in new 8051 variants:

Hardware support for more serial interfaces:

2 UARTs Support for other bus standards such as I2C, SPI, CAN, USB

New features and emerging trends in new 8051 variants:

Architecture extension:
More than 64K program memory More than 64K data memory New Instructions

Example: Philips 8051MX family

Upto 8MB program memory Upto 8MB data memory New instructions include Universal Pointers to access 16MB memory space uniformly

New features and emerging trends in new 8051 variants:

Custom designed 8051:

Buy 8051 core (VHDL source code) Make necessary changes to add desired features and/or to remove unwanted features. Build own 8051 chip (FPGA or ASIC)

Summary:
Wide choice of micro-controllers is available within 8051 family. Developer can select the optimum 8051 variant for own application. Or design and build own 8051 variant. Select 8051 development tools that support all or most variants.