Silicon Labs (distributed in Australia by Braemac) announced a line of automotive-qualified microcontrollers (MCUs) that the company said are designed for cost-sensitive, space-constrained embedded body control applications, such as fan control, seat adjustment, window lifters and fuel tank sensors.

According to Silicon Labs, the pin- and software-compatible 8-bit C8051F5xx MCUs eliminate the need for discrete analogue components and reduce code size. In addition, they offer mixed-signal integration that creates a 4x4 mm footprint. The devices include an integrated precision voltage reference, a 5 V regulator and a high-accuracy on-chip oscillator, which enables the latest high-speed control area network (CAN 2.0) and local interconnect bus (LIN 2.1) connections without an external clock crystal. An automatic analogue adjustment feature enables the use of lower-cost sensors.

Offering a CPU throughput of up to 50 MIPS, the MCUs enable real-time computations instead of look-up tables, which reduces code size. Signal processing algorithms can be implemented in real time, reducing the need for external filtering components, which in turn lowers system complexity and cost.