Texas Instruments Introduces Ultra Low Power Microcontroller to Extend Battery Life

Test probe P100-B can be customized for other specifications

Photocoupler

Texas Instruments (TI) today announced the availability of the latest MSP430TM microcontrollers (MCUs) that reduce the power consumption of normally-on smartphones, tablets and accessories, enabling advanced environmental computing for next-generation handheld consumer devices. Developers can use the MSP430F525x MCU for sensor hub, keyboard control, and battery/power management functions to create a portable consumer device that puts the high-power application processor and touch-screen controller in standby instead of consuming the system battery.

The MSP430F525x MCU features a 1.8V rail I/O architecture that allows seamless connection to the application processor without the need for an external level shifting circuit. Customers can now create smartphones, tablets and accessories that keep I/O at 1.8V and keep the MCU at maximum performance. These microcontrollers support a fast wake-up time of 3.5μs and standby mode power consumption as low as 1.6μA, extending the battery life of portable consumer products from hours to days, while reducing board space and reducing system cost.

All of the latest MSP430F525x microcontrollers include easy-to-use software support to help designers get started quickly. The latest MCUs are compatible with MSP430WareTM software, and developers can simplify development by getting code samples to speed time to market. In addition, the latest MCUs are code-compatible with existing MSP430 devices, enabling a wider range of extensions in the overall TI ultra-low-power MCU product family.

In addition, the latest 16-bit MCUs include more RAM, I/O, and serial interfaces for faster execution of complex sensor algorithms, aggregation, and monitoring functions. For more information on the MSP430F525x MCU, please visit http://

More features and benefits of the MSP430F525x microcontroller:

• Provides 4 USCI_A interfaces and 4 USCI_B interfaces, allowing developers to access up to 8 serial interfaces (4 I2C and 4 SPI) for fast and robust sensor or peripheral communication;

• 1.8V rails can use up to 35 general purpose I/Os to conserve energy by turning off power to unused components;

• Low-power peripherals include four 16-bit timers, a high-performance 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), hardware multipliers, DMA, comparators, and a real-time clock module with alarms;

• Flash memory power consumption of 290μA/MHz, RAM of 150μA/MHz, standby mode power consumption of 1.6μA (3V), plus 3.5μs ultra-fast wake-up time to help developers implement ultra-low power consumption while implementing Differentiated features.

Eight additional single-voltage rail 128K flash MSP430F524x and MSP430F523x variants are ideal for industrial applications requiring greater memory capacity, such as wireless smoke detectors, industrial sensors, and smart home appliances. In addition, these devices support ZigBeeTM and other software-intensive wireless interfaces such as Wi-Fi.

Availability

Developers can immediately order the latest MSP430F525x MCUs and MSP430F524x/3x MCUs, with samples coming soon. The MSP-TS430RGC64C pin target board is available now. Synchronously available is the MSP-FET430U64C pin target board and UIF emulator, which can be ordered immediately through the TI eStore.