TI’s Wolverine MCU platform slashes power by 50 percent

DALLAS, USA: Imagine a device worn on your finger that allows intuitive, touch-free interaction with the digital world. Imagine a solar panel the size of a microcontroller that enables environmental intelligence in any building. Imagine integrating carbon monoxide sensing, thermostat control and biometric security capabilities to a smoke detector without increasing its size.

This smarter, greener, battery-free world is fast becoming a reality with the world’s lowest-power microcontroller platform from Texas Instruments Inc. (TI). Codenamed “Wolverine” for its aggressive power-saving technology, this ultra-low-power MSP430 microcontroller platform offers at least 50 percent less power consumption than any other microcontroller in the industry (360 nA real-time clock mode and less than 100 µA/MHz active power consumption). The first devices based on this platform will be the MSP430FR58xx microcontroller series with expected availability in June 2012.

“Everyday devices such as glucose meters and smoke detectors are seeing increased levels of performance with 10-20 years of battery longevity, and this trend is trickling into a myriad of other applications,” said Kevin Wang, chief analyst, iSuppli China. “The revolutionary ‘Wolverine’ low-power architecture from TI is setting a new industry standard and will enable a proliferation of ultra-low-power products. From consumer to medical to industrial, the sky is the limit.”

The “Wolverine” platform provides the lowest power consumption in any use case when compared to any microcontroller in the industry – lowest active power, standby power, memory power and peripheral power. For example, typical battery powered applications spend as much as 99.9 percent of their time in standby mode, and “Wolverine”-based microcontrollers consume 360 nA in standby mode, more than doubling battery life. TI continues its legacy of pioneering the latest low-power techniques with the ultra-low-power system architecture and revolutionary technology of the “Wolverine” microcontroller platform.