Most energy-efficient MCUs target ultra low-power IoT applications

Cypress Semiconductor has introduced two new series in its highly-efficient FM0+ portfolio of Flexible Microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M0+ core. The new FM0+ S6E1B-Series and S6E1C-Series microcontrollers (MCUs) deliver Cortex-M3/M4-class peripherals at a low, 40µA/MHz active current consumption budget - providing the industry’s best combination of performance, efficiency and integrated peripherals for Cortex-M0+-based MCUs, says the company. The S6E1B-Series features the industry’s largest memory size for a Cortex-M0+ device and supports highly reliable and secure machine-to-machine (M2M) communication for the Internet of Things, while the S6E1C-Series is optimized for wearables and a wide range of ultra low-power, battery-powered products. The processing and flash architecture of Cypress FM0+ MCUs is optimized for high-efficiency, enabling the family to achieve an industry-best 35µA/CoreMark score. CoreMark, which was developed by the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC®), benchmarks the performance of a processor core and its memory subsystem and enables quick comparisons between processors. The FM0+ MCUs offer a memory and I/O footprint typically featured only in higher-end MCUs with Cortex-M3 or Cortex-M4 cores, with up to 560KB of flash, 64KB SRAM and 102 GPIOs for the S6E1B-Series. With their fast wake-up from standby modes, the FM0+ MCUs optimize power savings by remaining in low-power states for longer durations before quickly switching back to active modes. The FM0+ portfolio features industry-leading peripheral integration that includes communication interfaces with AES hardware encryption, a rich set of digital and analog peripherals and a high-accuracy internal crystal oscillator to enable crystal-less communication and reduced bills-of-materials cost—all in small QFN and QFP packages sampling today, and an even smaller, 6.4mm2 wafer-level chip scale package (WLCSP) available in the first quarter of 2016, says the company. "Smart, sensor-based Internet of Things applications, wearables and healthcare equipment require secure and reliable M2M communication, increasing demand for solutions with ultra-low power consumption and high peripheral integration," said John Weil, vice president of marketing for the MCU business unit, Cypress. "Our new FM0+ MCUs are designed to meet this challenge with a unique combination of integrated peripherals and an ultra-low-power ARM Cortex-M0+ core."