Energy Micro adds Giant Gecko MCU for memory heavy apps

OSLO, NORWAY: Energy Micro, the energy friendly microcontroller company, has announced details of its EFM 32 Giant Gecko microcontroller product family. For energy sensitive applications with high memory requirements, the 32-bit Giant Gecko (GG) will provide Flash configurations up to 1024KB with the added option of embedded USB connectivity.

There will be 48 EFM32GG microcontrollers offering a choice of 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024 KB Flash memory blocks and a RAM of 32KB or 128KB. The microcontrollers’ pin and software compatibility with the existing Gecko product family means designers can develop products using the existing Gecko microcontroller and migrate to Giant Gecko when the higher memory parts enter production. Package options will include QFN64, QFP100 and BGA112.

Built around the energy-efficient ARM Cortex-M3 processor architecture, the Giant Gecko, Gecko and Tiny Gecko microcontrollers demonstrate an energy usage a quarter of that of alternative 8-, 16- or 32-bit microcontrollers.

With a wake-up time of just 2µs and current consumption of 180µA per MHz executing code from Flash, 900nA in deep sleep mode and 20nA in shut off mode, the microcontrollers are proven capable of extending typical battery life by 300 percent.

The Giant Gecko’s embedded USB connectivity option will be USB2.0 compliant at full speed (12Mbit/s), integrating 2KB endpoint buffers and handling up to 10 endpoints. It will provide support for USB host and on-the-go configurations as well as bootloader over USB. Additional extended communication options offered by Giant Gecko will include dual I2C and up to 5 USART/UART serial interfaces.

Giant Gecko will feature the same selection of energy-saving peripherals as the companion Gecko and Tiny Gecko products. These include: an 8-channel, 12-bit ADC using 200µA at full resolution and 1Msamples/sec conversion rate, a 4x40 segment LCD controller using 900nA and a special Low Energy UART consuming just 100nA at 9600baud. In addition, for wireless encryption/decryption duties, an 128/256-bit AES accelerator block is also provided.

VELUX A/S, one of the strongest brands in the global building materials and home improvement industry, is a lead customer of the EFM32 Giant Gecko Microcontroller family.

Bjarne Ravndal Andreasen, R&D manager at VELUX A/S said: “We have already successfully used the EFM32 Gecko Microcontroller in some of our electronic products. The EFM32 Giant Gecko family with 1MByte of Flash memory and full speed USB functionality will enable us to use EFM32 low energy microcontrollers in a wider range of electronic VELUX products.”

The EFM32 Giant Gecko from Energy Micro will begin sampling in Q1’2011 and pricing will start at $2.5 USD each in 100k quantities.