Energy Micro intros first energy friendly ARM Cortex-M4 products

embedded world 2012, NUREMBERG, GERMANY & OSLO, NORWAY: Energy Micro, the energy friendly microcontroller and radio company, will extend its EFM32 Gecko range of microcontrollers with the addition of products based on the ARM Cortex-M4F core.

The addition of 60 new EFM32 Wonder Gecko devices brings the total number of variants within the Gecko range to over 240 – the industry’s most comprehensive range of pin- and code-compatible devices for low-energy embedded applications. The new controllers incorporate highly differentiated Gecko technology to minimize energy consumption, including a flexible range of standby and sleep modes, intelligent peripherals that allow designers to implement many functions without CPU wake-up, and ultra-low standby current.

“By adding M4F to our portfolio, we create a complete pin- and code-compatible roadmap of processors, from the lower cost value line Zero Gecko through to Wonder Gecko variants incorporating sophisticated signal processing functionality,“ said Geir Førre, CEO of Energy Micro. “With the lowest active and standby power consumption, this makes the Wonder Gecko the world's most energy friendly Cortex-M4 microcontroller.”

Equipped with up to 256K Flash memory and 32K RAM, the Wonder Gecko devices share many of the features that have made the EFM32 Series the solution of choice for low-energy applications. The new M4F family can achieve active mode current consumption of just 180µA/MHz. Devices provide a deep sleep mode that consumes just 400nA with RTC running, a shut-off mode requiring only 20nA and wake-up time as short as 2µs.

The LESENSE function block, a generic low energy sensor interface, enables monitoring of a mix of up to 16 capacitive, inductive or resistive sensors independently of the processor core. This allows designers to maintain basic functionality while keeping the processor in sleep or shut-off mode for as long as possible.

The Wonder Gecko processors will be available in sample quantities in Q3 2012, with pricing starting at $2.64 at 100K devices.

Energy Micro’s Gecko microcontroller portfolio consists of more than 240 variants based on the ARM Cortex-M processor cores, and includes Gecko Technology benchmarked to consume just a quarter of the energy of competing 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit MCUs.