Dissipation Barrier Broken By New Flash-Based MCUs

The final touches have been put on two new flash-based microcontrollers that dissipate only 250 µA when active and a mere 0.8 µA in standby. And the 16-bit RISC MCUs make the standby-to-active transition in under 6 µs. Said to provide a complete system-on-a-chip (SoC), the MSP430F43x/F44x ICs contain up to 60 KB of flash, 2 KB of RAM, a 160-segment LCD driver, a 200-kSamples/s 12-bit A/D converter, a comparator, two PWM timers, two hardware USARTs, a 16-bit hardware multiplier, and a supply voltage supervisor to combat brown-outs. The 8-channel ADC comes with a built-in programmable sample-and-hold, RC oscillator, temperature sensor, low-battery detection, and an auto scan with a 16-word buffer that supports high-speed mixed signal processing. In addition, the chipÕs embedded real-time JTAG emulation capability allows it to be programmed either in standalone sockets or in-system via dedicated JTAG pins. The F43x and F44x MCUs come in 100-pin PZ QFPs, with part MSP430F449 costing $7.03 each/1,000. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC., Semiconductor Group, Santa Clarieta, CA. (800) 477-8924, ext. 4500.