THE MPC860 - DESIGNED FOR NETWORKING

(August 28th 1994) While the world concentrated on the MPC821, Motorola
also slipped out the lower-profile MPC860 PowerQUICC (Quad Integrated
Communications Controller) , destined to find itself at the heart of
Ethernet bridges, routers, PBX switches, PCMCIA and GSM cellular base-
stations and the like.

There are actually five chips in the new family, all conforming to the
same architecture. Like the MPC821, the 860s have a PowerPC core with a
separate RISC-based communications processor module, plus loads of
support circuitry. The PowerPC core looks similar to the MPC821's. It is
said to deliver the same 52 Dhrystone MIPS at 40MHz or 33MIPS at 25MHz.
At the slower speed the chip draws less than 1/3 or a Watt.

The separate communication processor module contains either two or four
serial communication controllers (SCCs) depending on the model, each of
which can run a separate communication protocol. The comms processor
also has 16 serial DMA controllers, two serial management controllers a
serial peripheral interface and a multiply accumulate function for DSP
work. The chip, says Motorola, is quite capable of implementing high-
speed modem communication, handling simultaneous voice and data and
running LAN to WAN interconnection. The five different models of the
MPC860 family have different combinations of Ethernet and protocol
support.

The PowerQUICC controllers are sampling in small quantities now, with
general sampling of most of the models beginning in the first quarter of
96 and volume production beginning in Q2. An application development
system, including a board for use with a PC-compatible or Sun4 system
is available for $2,995.