ARM-based MCU touts 1.6uA standby current

Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) has introduced the Stellaris Cortex-M4F MCU that features two high-performance 12bit ADCs and three comparators that support mixed-signal applications. Its floating-point core operates at up to 80MHz to provide targeted performance headroom for application differentiation. The device offers excellent power consumption to address portability and power budgets, said TI.

Developers can select from a range of high-performance analog, memory and connectivity options to best satisfy design parameters across many applications such as industrial automation, motion control, health and fitness. The Stellaris MCUs are the first Cortex-M-based MCUs to be built on 65nm technology, paving the roadmap to higher speeds, larger memory and even lower power, noted the company.

To ease design and speed time to market, TI's free license and royalty-free StellarisWare software is available for download. It includes hundreds of example projects, application and peripheral libraries and open source stacks. To conserve flash memory, TI also offers the software pre-loaded in ROM. Supported by five popular IDEs, Stellaris MCU kits jumpstart design in 10 minutes or less. Developers can easily scale designs and reuse code across the entire code compatible Stellaris Cortex-M MCU platform, TI said.

The device's 12bit ADC accuracy is achievable at the full 1MSPS rating without any hardware averaging, eliminating any performance tradeoffs. The low power Stellaris MCU offers standby currents as low as 1.6uA, enabling longer battery life and support for constrained power budgets. Its connectivity options include USB (host, device and On-The-Go), UARTs, I2C, SSI/SPI and CAN.

The Stellaris Cortex-M4F MCU has integrated EEPROM that supports high-endurance non-volatile storage of user interface or configuration parameters to reduce system cost. Options for up to 256KB flash and 32KB SRAM to address varying application needs is available. The MCU's code compatibility allows system designers to easily scale designs across more than 220 Stellaris Cortex-M MCU, added TI.

The new Stellaris Cortex-M4F MCUs start at $1.53 at 10K quantities. The EK-LM4F232 evaluation kit is priced at $149 with lead time of up to two weeks.