Out in Front: April 11, 1996

Two years ago, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced its ElanSC300 µP, basically, a PC-AT system on a chip. Reception in the device's target market—handheld computers—was cool, however. Developers instead wanted to use the SC300 for more embedded applications. To accommodate these applications, AMD designed a more cost-sensitive Elan product, the SC310, by removing the SC300's PCMCIA and CGA controllers. CGA-controller removal is no great loss; the controllers have a limited number of modes, and VGA is preferable.

The SC300 and SC310 each contain a 386 core, 8237-compatible DMA controllers, a local-bus controller, a DRAM controller, a 16450-compatible serial port, an enhanced parallel port (EPP compliant), an 8254 programmable interval timer, an 8259 interrupt controller, a real-time clock, and power-management functions. An internal PLL allows you to use a 32-kHz crystal input to derive the 25-MHz operating frequency.

The SC310 in a 208-PQFP sells for $28 (10,000)—$8 less than the SC300. AMD plans to provide an evaluation board for the SC310, but, in the meantime, you can use the board for SC300.

—by Markus Levy
Advanced Micro Devices, Austin, TX. (512) 462-4360.