February 22, 2001–Osaka, Japan–Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. and its semiconductor subsidiary Matsushita Electronics Corp. today announced the development of a 32-bit microcontroller with 512KB flash memory, featuring the industry’s lowest power consumption and highest signal processing speed. At the same time, Matsushita announced development of a 512KB mask ROM version of the same 32-bit microcontroller. Shipment of samples is planned for the second quarter of 2001.

Fabricated with Matsushita’s original AM32 CPU core, this new microcontroller meets today’s increasingly sophisticated demands in digital consumer electronics products for increased miniaturization, higher functionality, and reduced die counts, as well as higher performance and lower power consumption. The new chip’s embedded large-capacity 512KB flash memory makes the chip especially suited for devices that require the uninterrupted smoothness of real-time operation, such as DVCs (DV-format digital camcorders), DSCs (digital still cameras), digital video recorders, and hard disc video player. All basic DVC control functions can be performed using this one chip, whereas conventional technologies still require multiple microcontrollers to perform the same thing. This microcontroller is highly effective as a program development tool as well, shortening the time-to-market by enabling developers to rewrite in place on the actual circuit board itself.