Microcontrollers spell the end for batteries
17 June 2008
Texas Instruments claims its MSP430 microcontrollers can do away with batteries in some designs.
The MSP430F5xx micrcontrollers have active power consumption as low as 160µA /MHz and 1.5µA in standby for longer battery life, smaller batteries for portable applications and even no batteries at all for systems that run from solar power, vibration energy or human body temperature.
One example of this no-battery technology is AdaptivEnergy’s Joule-Thief which collects and stores electrical energy from small mechanical vibrations which is then used to power a small, low-power MSP430 microcontroller. This has been used in a compact RF sensor design, which detects and reports critical conditions in cars, offices or homes, without wiring or batteries.
The microcontrollers provide up to 50 per cent more processing performance than previous generations, 25MHz peak performance and double the flash memory and RAM of earlier models. Integrated peripherals such as RF, USB, encryption and LCD interfaces will be included. All of which allow designers to add functionality for use in medical, home automation, human interface control, automated meter reading, portable instrumentation, sensors, consumer electronics and security. Development tools and third party support are available.
Wake-up time is less than 5µsec with full status retention from both standby and sleep modes for full performance on demand and instant reaction to events like external interrupts. Multi-channel DMA (direct memory access) allows data exchange with peripherals while the core remains in low-power modes to increase functionality without the power penalty. What is claimed to be the industry's highest code density among comparable devices maximises performance while minimising memory and power requirements, says the company.
A true 32bit RTC (real-time clock) with an alarm requires just 1.5µA of standby current, so that batteries can operate for 20 years or more, without servicing. This feature is particularly useful in the metering industry, where meter batteries can be replaced less often and save time and money in maintaining the infrastructure.
A PMM (power management module) allows the designer to choose the optimum core voltage dynamically for lowest power versus performance requirements while enabling accurate power on reset and supply voltage supervision with monitoring. There is a selection of clocks in the unified clock system that can be mixed for power and precision. There is also an option for operation without a crystal.
As for a roadmap, the company believes a new high-resolution timer will enable applications like voice-activated home security systems. Up to 1MByte of linear memory mapping enables robust user interfaces, as well as applications for ZigBee and other low-power RF sensor networks.
Read/erase/write capability is down to 1.8V, for applications based on two AAA batteries, Flash write is possible down to the battery end of life voltage of 0.9V for each battery.
The MSP430F5xx generation is instruction set-compatible with earlier-generation MSP430 devices and will be available from August. Initially, the MSP430F5437IPN, F5436IPZ, F5435IPN, F5419IPZ and F5418IPN will be released. Development tools and third party support is available. Package options include 80pin and 100pin TQFPs, the latter has additional GPIOS.
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