Hi All. I used Atmel 8051 derivatives in all my earlier projects. Atmel made a really nice chip in the AT89C55 then later they changed the die and it was not as good; chip 'engineers' come along and change a tried and true chip and its specs change and then it does not work properly anymore. EG CD40106/74C14 performs totally differently than the original National Semiconductors CD40106. But thats not the subject of this post ;-)
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I have noticed that in my latest suppliers linecard that only the AT89c2051 is being sold and it seems the 'old' 8051 is a dying breed. Even to source the AT89C55WD is a special order here in New Zealand. Does this mean the 8051/2 series is considered defunct? Should I be looking at alternatives for my next product? If so, its a pain as I have programmer, emulator and software to achieve my goals with the 8051 series. Thank you. Alistair.