Energy Micro has announced the introduction of a further 100 EFM32 Gecko energy friendly microcontrollers. Pin and code compatible with the existing Gecko and Tiny Gecko products, the new ARM Cortex-M3 based Leopard Gecko and Giant Gecko microcontrollers are available now and bring memory configurations up to 1MB, more package choice and additional energy saving, connectivity and display driving options. The Leopard Gecko product family is composed of 60 MCUs, providing 32KB RAM as standard and Flash of either 64KB, 128KB and 256KB. At the top end of the Energy Micro product portfolio, the 40 MCU Giant Gecko family provides Flash configurations of either 512KB or 1024KB with 128KB of RAM. An extended range of package options comprises QFN64, QFP100, BGA112 and new QFP64 and 7x7mm small form factor BGA120 packages. The latest low power Geckos also take CPU operating speeds up to 48MHz.
A new feature introduced by the Leopard Gecko and Giant Gecko product families is a 400nA back-up power mode, enabling the RTC to keep running and providing 512 back-up register bytes, thereby protecting against clock reset and data loss on a momentary power loss. To help further reduce external component counts, the latest MCUs also integrate 3 on-chip operational amplifiers. As well as Energy Micro’s low power 8x36 segment LCD controller, the latest MCUs also introduce the added option of a 320x240 dot direct drive TFT controller capable of driving display updates without CPU intervention, enabling further system power savings to be made in a wider variety of applications. A USB 2.0 full speed connectivity option introduced on Leopard and Giant products supports host and OTG protocols and up to fourteen 2KB buffered end points, while a built-in 3.3V regulator also allows users to run the MCU from USB link power. Additional communication options include 5 standard USART/UART serial interfaces and Energy Micro’s Low Energy UART, drawing only 150nA at 9600baud.
