Silicon Labs has introduced the latest member of its EFM8 eight-bit MCU portfolio designed for ultra-low-power, small-footprint IoT applications with capacitive touch sensing requirements. The EFM8SB1 Sleepy Bee MCUs, available in a 1.78 x 1.66 mm wafer-level chip-scale package, are claimed to be the industry's smallest MCUs.
The MCUs are suitable for touch-based, battery-powered and space-constrained IoT and industrial applications requiring long battery lifetimes and energy-efficient human interfaces, including wearables, remote controls, Bluetooth accessories and eReaders, as well as industrial automation, home automation and office equipment.
The EFM8SB1 Sleepy Bee MCUs are said to be Silicon Labs' most energy-friendly eight-bit devices offering sleep mode power of 50nA with full memory retention and brown-out detection, and a 2µs wake-up time. Featuring core speeds of up to 25MHz, and flash sizes ranging from 2 to 8kByte, the MCUs also integrate a capacitive sense controller offering <1µA wake-on-touch capability and 12 capacitive touch channels.
The MCUs offer a mix of analogue and digital peripherals including a high-resolution capacitance-to-digital converter, a 12-bit analogue-to-digital converter, high-performance timers, and SPI, I2C and UART serial ports. These peripherals are configurable and accessible to developers through Silicon Labs' crossbar technology.
Author
Tom Austin-Morgan
Source: www.newelectronics.co.uk