Energy Micro launches EFM32 Tiny Gecko microcontrollers for low power, space and cost sensitive applications

Engineered around the energy-efficient ARM® Cortex(TM)-M3 architecture, the 32-bit Gecko products use less than a quarter of the energy needed by alternative 8-, 16- or 32-bit microcontrollers. Their current consumption is extremely low: in active mode typically 180µA per MHz executing code from Flash, 900nA in deep sleep mode and 20nA in shut off mode. In application benchmark tests, this low current performance, combined with a wake-up time of under 2µs has enabled the EFM32 Gecko microcontrollers to extend battery cell life by a factor of at least four.



The smallest and lowest cost Tiny Gecko microcontrollers, the QFN20 packaged EFM32TG100 devices, provide Flash and RAM capacities of respectively 4 to 32KB and 1 to 4KB and 12 GPIO. To simplify application scaling, the QFN32 packaged TG200 and QFN64 packaged TG230 and TG840 are also pin-compatible with the bigger Gecko family of products and provide Flash options of 8, 16 and 32KB and either 2 or 4KB of RAM and 24 or 56 GPIO.



To help further reduce overall system cost, the Tiny Gecko products offer the same energy saving features and most of the peripherals of the larger Gecko products. At the top of the range, the TG840 devices embed a 4x24 segment LCD controller consuming less than 900nA, while all TG parts offer an AES encryption / decryption engine as standard, a pre-requisite for many wireless applications.



Other peripherals provided by Tiny Gecko include low energy UART and I2C serial interfaces, A/D and D/A converters and a host of counters and timers. Unique to the Gecko microcontroller, its 'peripheral reflex system' running in parallel with the standard 32-bit ARM bus allows peripherals to run and communicate autonomously while the CPU is turned off, resulting in longer sleep periods and large savings in energy consumption.



Thirteen EFM32 Tiny Gecko microcontrollers will begin sampling in Q3 2010 and enter full production during Q4 2010. Pricing starts at $0.99 USD each in 100 K quantities. For further information visit: www.energymicro.com



As the QFN32 and QFN64 Tiny Gecko microcontrollers are pin and software compatible with the larger Gecko microcontrollers, developers can begin development using Gecko and migrate to Tiny Gecko when the parts become available. Later in the year Energy Micro will also announce a new low energy Gecko microcontroller family, offering higher memory capacities and new features including USB connectivity.