Tekmos is making old 68HC05 replacements

Back in the 1980s I designed a bookbinding machine using a Hitachi micro-controller part that used a Motorola license. Motorola was mad at them for some other issue and pulled the license and I could no longer get the part. In 1998, not having learned my lesson, I used an Atmel AT90 microprocessor in a point of sale terminal. Atmel decided to obsolete that product and my design and all the software development was wasted. So I am always delighted to see some standard parts develop that have 20-year lifetimes. From the Tekmos press release:

The TK68HC05B6 provides 256 bytes of EEPROM, 16 bit timer, two PWM, watch dog timer, 8 channel A/D converter, 24 bit bi-directional I/O lines, on chip oscillator with crystal/ceramic resonator and serial communications capability. The TK68HC05B6 will be packaged in a 52 PLCC. Other package offerings supported include 64 QFP and custom adapter solutions for the 56 SDIP.

The TK68HC05B6 is designed as a pin-for-pin, code and timing compatible drop in replacement for the original MC68HC05 microcontroller offered by Freescale Semiconductor. Tekmos offers customers the security of a stable product supply now and in the future as specialists in supporting mature products.

The TK68HC05B6 will be sampled in August 2008. The 52 PLCC version is priced at $1.30 in 10,000 pc quantities. There is a mask programming charge of $5.000 for each device code. An FPGA based customer evaluation board is available now for customers wishing to verify the Tekmos TK68HC05B6 design in their products.

Tekmos also plans to introduce several derivative products to replace other Freescale Semiconductor microcontrollers such as the MC68HC705, MC68HC711 and MC68HC11 products as drop in replacements.

I had not heard of Tekmos. Now if we can just Oliver Germanium to bring back those old transistors, we can have products that won’t go obsolete due to lack of parts availability.