The DS80C310 is a fast 80C31/80C32-compatible microcontroller. It features a redesigned processor core without wasted clock and memory cycles. As a result, it executes every 8051 instruction between 1.5x and 3x faster than the original architecture for the same crystal speed. Typical applications have a speed improvement of 2.5x using the same code and the same crystal. The DS80C310 offers a 33MHz maximum crystal speed, resulting in apparent execution speeds of 82.5MHz (approximately 2.5x).

The DS80C310 is pin compatible with the standard 80C32 and includes standard resources such as three timer/counters, 256 bytes of RAM, and a serial port. It also provides dual data pointers (DPTRs) to speed block data memory moves. It also can adjust the speed of MOVX data memory access between two and nine machine cycles for flexibility in selecting external memory and peripherals. The DS80C310 offers upward compatibility with the DS80C320.