Dear Voltaic,
I don't really know why the mcu needs an external high-voltage entry in the IRQ pin, but according to the HC08QY datasheet, the internal charge pump works when the flash memory needs to be programmed or erased, so it seems to me that this voltage it's not always "present" inside the mcu (goes on and off according to what is doing). Take a look at this paragraph I've copied from the datasheet:
" Due to the ability of the on-board charge pump to erase and program the FLASH memory in the target application, provision is made to protect blocks of memory from unintentional erase or program operations due to system malfunction. This protection is done by use of a FLASH block protect register (FLBPR).
The FLBPR determines the range of the FLASH memory which is to be protected. The range of the
protected area starts from a location defined by FLBPR and ends to the bottom of the FLASH memory
($FFFF). When the memory is protected, the HVEN bit cannot be set in either ERASE or PROGRAM
operations. "
May be it is related to that same protection system the flash memory has. Besides, the high voltage needs to be on all the time when in monitor mode and if you need to program or erase the flash memory (turn on and off those 9.1V) you would have to exit monitor mode at some point (as IRQ will loose its high voltage entry) of the programming and debugging procedure, what, as far as I know is not possible.
I personally think that if Freescale's designers thought that the high voltage entry needs to be external despite the internal charge pump they must have had a good reason (or at least I hope so!), so we should think that they've used the most suitable designing technique focused on performance and reliability.
Regards, Omar.
Message Edited by OmarAI on 2009-06-24 02:50 AM