It's amazing that one of the early microcontroller cores the 8-bit Intel 8051, which was first introduced more than 30 years ago in 1981 is still going strong.
Of course, the fact that billions and billions of controllers based on this core have been sold has a lot to do with this. This is because there's a humongous amount of legacy code laying around, and also because a lot of people have a lot of expertise with this processor (many have experience with no other core), along with the fact that many people are still working with 8051-based tool chains they purchased a decade or more ago (they don't want to purchase or learn new tools).
Because of the legacy Tutorials, Books and Sample Codes on 8051 are available in large numbers therefore we have concentrated on compiling information on some Software and Power Management Techniques which can improve efficiency of the projects made using 8051.Some of these techniques might as well work for development on platforms other than 8051.
We have designed the S52-LE to be used as a learning tool in the class "Assembly and C programming for Microcontroller".
Students may build the board by themselves to practice learning by doing. The S52-LE has following features.