Introduction
The rapidly growing area of embedded control applications is representing one of the most time-critical operating environments for today’s microcontrollers. Complex control algorithms have to be processed based on a large number of digital as well as analog input signals, and the appropriate output signals must be generated within a defined maximum response time. Embedded control applications also are often sensitive to board space, power consumption, and overall system cost.
Embedded control applications therefore require microcontrollers, which:
• offer a high level of system integration
• eliminate the need for additional peripheral devices and the associated software overhead
• provide system security and fail-safe mechanisms
• provide effective means to control (and reduce) the device’s power consumption

The increasing complexity of embedded control applications requires microcontrollers for new high-end embedded control systems to possess a significant increase in CPU performance and peripheral functionality over conventional 8-bit controllers. To achieve this high performance goal Infineon has decided to develop its families of 16-bit CMOS microcontrollers without the constraints of backward compatibility.
Nonetheless the architectures of the 16-bit microcontroller families pursue successful hardware and software concepts, which have been established in Infineon’s popular 8-bit controller families.
This established functionality, which has been the basis for system solutions in a wide range of application areas, is amended with flexible peripheral modules and effective power control features. The sum of this provides the prerequisites for powerful, yet efficient systems-on-chip.

Architectural Overview
The architecture of the XC2000 core combines the advantages of both RISC and CISC processors in a very well-balanced way. This computing and controlling power is completed by the DSP-functionality of the MAC-unit. The XC2000 integrates this powerful CPU core with a set of powerful peripheral units into one chip and connects them very efficiently. On-chip memory blocks with dedicated buses and control units store code and data. This combination of features results in a high performance microcontroller, which is the right choice not only for today’s applications, but also for future engineering challenges. One of the buses used concurrently on the XC2000 is the LXBus, an internal representation of the external bus interface. This bus provides a standardized method for integrating additional application-specific peripherals into derivatives of the standard XC2000.