RISC microcontrollers for automotive control

The price/performance characteristics of modern microcontrollers yields more performance for less money. The problem with integrating all of the automotive functions before was that the performance was not available in a microcontroller that could be used in automotive electronics. For instance, it would be very difficult to use the class of microcontrollers used in high end desk top computers in an automotive environment because these devices use such a great amount of power. In the automotive environment where heat is ever present, it would be almost impossible to keep these devices within the temperature range required for proper operation. There are now new microcontrollers, such as the MPC555, that offer the computing power to successfully handle many of the tasks described