The MMU was mostly compatible with the external 68851 that would be used with the 68020,[3] but being internal allowed it to access memory one cycle faster than a 68020/68851 combo.

However, the 68030 provides an additional synchronous bus interface which, if used, accelerates memory accesses up to 33% compared to an equally clocked 68020.

The finer manufacturing process allowed Motorola to scale the full-version processor to 50 MHz.

[5] The 68EC030 is a low cost version of the 68030, the difference between the two being that the 68EC030 omits the on-chip memory management unit (MMU) and is thus essentially an upgraded 68020.

It was also used in the Cisco Systems 2500 Series router, a small-to-medium enterprise computer internetworking appliance.