Silicon Labs' SiM3Lxxx family the latest addition to Silicon Labs’ portfolio of Precision32™ MCUs – is the industry’s most power-efficient 32-bit MCU, designed to achieve ground-breaking ultra-low-power operation on the ARM® Cortex™-M3 core. This class of MCUs is particularly well-suited for power-sensitive embedded systems used in battery-powered applications.
The SiM3Lxxx MCUs incorporate several power-saving features, which can reduce current consumption below that of many 8-bit MCUs. The key benefit to developers is that they can choose a more powerful core without the trade-off in reduced battery life. These Precision32 MCUs provide best-in-class ultra-low-power processing in embedded applications such as smart metering, in-home utility monitoring, wireless security, home and building automation, asset and material tracking, and health and fitness.
Key Features
- Active mode power savings include Dynamic Voltage Scaling and Data Transfer Manager
- Sleep mode power savings include hardware AES and sleep mode charge pump, RTC, sensor interface, and UART
- On-chip high efficiency DC-DC regulator powers up both internal and external circuitry, providing power savings for the complete system
- Integrated LCD controller with segment pre-charging provides lowest power LCD operation
- These devices are supported by state-of-the-art Silicon Labs Precision32 development suite, which has been revamped with step-by-step information and tips to optimize power consumption
Target Applications
- Smart water and gas meters
- Low-power architecture, DC-DC converter and sleep mode charge pump achieve 20+ year battery life. Unique autonomous sensor interface supports a wide range of sensor topologies without additional external components and cost.
- Heat cost allocation meter
- Sleep mode charge pump has the added benefit of reducing current leakage at high temperatures. Our technique achieves less than half the current leakage of competitive products. This allows us to meet 14-year battery life on standard lithium coin cell.
- Wireless connected objects and the Internet of Things
- Dedicated peripherals such as the data transfer manager, AES crypto block, and run-time encoder accelerate the processing of the radio protocol without requiring CPU intervention, greatly reducing active-mode power.
- Battery operated devices requiring segment LCDs
- Patented LCD controller features a unique charge redistribution architecture that actually reduces the power consumed by the display itself by nearly 40%. It also incorporates a voltage regulator that can maintain constant LCD contrast over the entire product life.
- Home and building automation
- Many devices used in these applications have to periodically wake-up, check the state of sensors, and control actuators and relays. The flexible, low-power real-time clock has multiple clock sources, as well as multiple alarms, which make it easy to coordinate complex tasks while maintaining a very low power of operation.
- Personal health and fitness
- More and more of today’s personal healthcare and fitness products require interfacing to a wide range of sensors (accelerometers, gyros, pressure, temperature, etc.), as well as requiring wireless connectivity. We have a dedicated sensor interface as well as peripherals designed to streamline wireless protocols.