Energy-friendly MCUs suit smart devices
The EFM32Giant Gecko 12 microcontroller (MCU) family from Silicon Labs is now being shipped by Mouser Electronics. Designed to provide advanced features and security during ultra-low-power performance, the microcontrollers offers low-energy peripherals to deliver autonomous performance while sleeping.
The GG12 microcontrollers are suitable for a broad range of applications requiring advanced processing during deep sleep, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices, sensors, smart meters, industrial automation, home security and health and fitness wearables.
The MCUs offer many of the features of the Giant Gecko 11 microcontrollers in a smaller package, and add a unique pulse density modulation (PDM) sensor interface to support PDM microphones and delta-sigma sensors.
They boast a 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 processor running at 72MHz with up to 1Mbyte of on-chip flash and 192Kbytes of RAM.
Low-energy peripherals include two 12-bit analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs), a digital-to-analogue converter (DAC), capacitive touch, and up to 83 general-purpose inputs/outputs (GPIO).
Additionally, the low-energy sensor interface enables fully autonomous processing capabilities during sleep mode.
Robust security features, include a cryptographic hardware engine that supports AES, ECC, SHA, and True Random Number Generator (TRNG).
The EFM32 Giant Gecko 12 family is supported by the Thunderboard GG12 kit for prototyping and evaluation.
This includes an integrated Segger J-Link debugger, two PDM microphones, tri-color LEDs, and breakout ports, and push buttons.
The board also includes an out-of-box demo for the microcontroller’s PDM sensor interface, making it an ideal choice for the development of high-quality, low-power audio input applications.