Silicon Labs' new 32-bit MCU EFM32PG23 and 8-bit MCU EFM8BB50 products are designed to help developers accelerate product prototyping with a more optimized design architecture. The PG23 and BB50 not only further expand Silicon Labs' MCU portfolio, but also leverage small size and low power design to meet the needs of a variety of micro, battery devices and iot applications.
The EFM32 combines ultra-low power consumption and high performance
EFM32 is an energy efficient microcontroller designed for ultra-low power applications, especially power sensitive consumer and industrial products. EFM32 series MCUS are designed to extend functionality to ensure the real-time capacity needed to perform tasks while maintaining low system power consumption. The EFM32 MCU family is ideal for prototyping many iot applications due to its highly integrated, low-power design based on the Cortex-M kernel.
The full range of EFM32 MCU is suitable for:
● Consumer Products
● Smart meters
● Home Automation
● Industrial automation
● Communication hub
● Industrial control hub
Take PG23, the latest model in the EFM32 series, as an example. This MCU is small but suitable for many applications. It has an Arm Cortex-M33 core with operating frequency up to 80 MHz and operating current of only 21µA/MHz. In hibernation mode, the current of PG23 can be as low as 1.03 µA. With its low power consumption and low-power sensor interface (LESENSE), the PG23 is ideal for battery-powered applications. The MCU provides enough memory for most algorithms, with up to 512 kB of flash memory and 64 kB of RAM. In addition to a full-fledged serial communication peripheral, the PG23 also has an LCD controller, keyboard scanning, and an on-chip temperature sensor.
To detect edge signals, the PG23 has two analog comparators and an analog to digital converter with flexible resolution, configurable in 12, 16 or 20 bit resolution. Developers can also change the ADC's mode to get the high speed mode of 2 Msps, or focus on accuracy to get the high accuracy mode of ENOB up to 16 bits. By increasing accuracy, PG23 is ideal for many consumer medical, or test and measurement applications to quickly build and deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms.
Silicon Labs offers fast speeds at ultra-low power in the MCU industry, utilizing optimized digital and analog peripherals with flexible pin mapping and high system clock speeds, resulting in faster prototyping with lower power consumption and less latency. These attributes are well suited to the many challenges of mixed-signal and low-latency design.
Minimal size BB50 MCU, reduce development cost and complexity, EFM8 8-bit MCU using the optimized C8051 core, can run 70% of the instructions in one cycle. Core frequency up to 72MHz, active current as low as 150µA/MHz, and sleeping current as low as 300nA. Overall, the wake time is reduced to 2µs and the ADC is a 14-bit SAR ADC. The series of microcontrollers has a GPIO range of 13-40, with up to 64kB of flash memory and up to 4kB of RAM to run.
Taking BB50, the latest model in the EFM8 family, as an example, the BB50 MCU family of products is designed for extremely small iot devices, ranging in size from 2mm on the side (about the width of a #2 pencil lead) to 5mm (less than the width of a standard #2 pencil). In this minimal size package, the MCU integrates rich analog and communication peripherals, significantly reducing the number of external components and thus significantly reducing the overall bill of Materials (BOM) cost of the product. This combination of features makes the BB50 ideal for small, battery-optimized devices such as connected medical devices, wearables, asset monitoring tags, smart sensors, and simple consumer electronics such as toothbrushes and toys.
The full range of EFM8 MCU applications include:
● Smoke Detector
● Remote Control
● Motor control
● Consumer Products
● Mobile Devices
● Lighting control
