•  
• EDN Europe MAGAZINE
•  
• Free SUBSCRIPTION
• Subscription Renewal
• View Media Kit

• EDN
• EDN Australia
• EDN Asia
• EDN China
• EDN Japan

PROCESSOR PUSHES POWER EVEN LOWER

 

Silicon Labs’ 25-MHz C8051F91x/0x microcontrollers sport active-mode current consumption of 4 mA, or 160 µA/MHz, at full speed and 1.8 or 3.3V operation. They also support a sleep mode with a current draw as low as 10 nA while maintaining full RAM retention. The current draw is 300 nA with an active real-time clock and brownout detection. This level of power consumption allows these microcontrollers to target smart meters, RFID tags, personal medical devices, sensor interfaces, energy harvesting, home-security systems, and smokeand fire-detector designs. The F91x/0x devices can fully wake up from sleep in less than 2 µsec.

The devices support 8- and 16-kbyte flash-memory options as well as a 12-bit ADC that includes an autonomous power-saving burst mode with a 16-bit automatic averaging accumulator that allows sampling without waking up the processor core. An integrated dc/dc converter supports operation to as low as 0.9V to enable operation with AA or AAA batteries, and all of the on-chip peripherals and flash are fully operational down to 0.9V. The dc/dc converter can supply 65 mW of output power to drive LEDs, RF transceivers, and sensors.

Software-development support for the F91x/0x family includes the C8051F912 development kit, F912-based ToolStick, and optional ToolStick programming adapters. The company provides sample code for the C8051F9xx and a battery-life estimator to help designers optimize power. Silicon Labs offers an RF-to-USB (Universal Serial Bus) reference design to demonstrate subgigahertz wireless and USB operation. The C8051F91x/0x family is available now in a 24-pin, 4x4-mm package for prices starting at $1.53 (10,000). The C8051F912 development kits are available for $99. The ToolStick912DC daughtercard sells for $9.90, and the ToolStick912 programmer costs $69.

Silicon Laboratories, www.silabs.com.