Energy Micro to extend ultra low power Gecko microcontroller family with Cortex-M0 product and enhances Tiny product performance

To be named ‘Zero Gecko’, the M0 based microcontroller line of 20 new products will provide Energy Micro’s lowest cost energy friendly microcontroller solution. Pin and software compatible with the companion M3 based products, Zero will also achieve the same four times improvement in energy consumption when compared to alternative M0 based microcontrollers.

Energy Micro is currently working with lead customers on product specification refinement and plans to make Zero Gecko available to customers during Q4’2011 at an entry level price of $0.6 each in 100k quantities. It will target battery-backed applications in sectors such as energy metering, building automation, security and portable medical equipment.

Scheduled to enter volume production during Q2’2011, the bigger M3 based Tiny Gecko microcontroller product line now being sampled by customers is achieving a current consumption performance of 160µA per MHz. This improves on the previously announced figure, and is due to enhancements in energy aware design techniques and chip architecture.

Andreas Koller, Energy Micro’s VP of Marketing and Sales said, “These two announcements underline our continued commitment to providing customers with the most energy friendly microcontroller solutions that offer the best possible fit with energy sensitive application requirements. The M0 based Zero Gecko offers true entry level access to the energy saving advantages of Energy Micro technology with a close-to-zero-effort migration path to the higher value M3 based Tiny Gecko, Gecko and Giant Gecko devices.”

In volume production since 2009, Energy Micro’s first product line, the EFM32 Gecko microcontroller has proven capable of consuming a quarter of the battery energy required by alternative 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers. The complete Gecko family is characterised by very low active and standby power consumption, fast processing and wake-up time and highly flexible low energy modes. It provides an array of low power peripheral functions able to be operated autonomously and is the first to support energy debugging, through its unique Advanced Energy Monitoring system and Simplicity Studio toolset.