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

Oslo, Norway, March 2nd, 2010 – Energy Micro®, the energy friendly microcontroller company, has announced a range of entry-level devices for low power applications subject to stringent PCB space and product cost limitations. At a sub-Dollar price, the EFM®32 "Tiny Gecko" (TG) microcontrollers offer the energy-efficient performance of the company’s bigger Gecko products combined with smaller Flash and RAM combinations and a choice of space saving QFN20, QFN32 and QFN64 packaging.

Engineered around the energy-efficient ARM® Cortex™-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.

For further information and reader enquiries:

Øyvind Borgan, Energy Micro AS, PO Box 4633, Nydalen, N-405 Oslo, Norway

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Tel:+47 23 00 98 00
Fax:+47 23 00 98 01
www.energymicro.com

For further information or to discuss feature article opportunities:

Rob Davies, Publitek Limited, 18 Brock Street, Bath, BA1 2LW, United Kingdom

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Tel: +44 (0)1225 470 000
Fax: +44 (0)1225 470 047
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About Energy Micro
Energy Micro develops, markets and sells the world's most energy friendly microcontrollers, based on the industry leading ARM® Cortex™-M3 32-bit architecture. The company was founded in 2007 by experienced semiconductor professionals with previous expertise from Chipcon, Texas Instruments, Atmel and Nordic Semiconductor. More information on Energy Micro is available at www.energymicro.com

Press Pictures (click to download)