Japan Semiconductor Innovation 50 (D-9 1980s)
Microcontroller with on-chip EPROM (Hitachi)
Hitachi developed a microcontroller HD63701V, with on-chip
EPROM and put it on the market in 1984. By restrictions of cost and reliability,
built-in EPROM had been used only for system development purposes, and the
mask ROM versions were used for mass production those days. Hitachi put
heavy development efforts to improve the reliability of plastic packages,
and succeeded in adopting them in on-chip EPROM products, thus realizing
major cost reduction.
On the user side, product introduction time to the market, or turn-around-time
(TAT) could be drastically shortened, by programming the chips at the user
sites. Hitachi named the products as "ZTAT" or Zero-Turn-Around-Time
microcontroller. This concept was taken over to rewritable microcontrollers
with on-chip flash memories in the 90s, and to the mainstream of microcontrollers
today.
Die photo of HD63701V |
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| Quote from Hitachi Hyoron, p24. 1985,8 |