High Efficiency Cortex-M4 MCUs Consume Less Power

The SAM4L family of ARM Cortex-M4 processor-based MCUs from Atmel is being hailed as the industry’s first device to provide ultra-low power consumption and more efficient wake-up times, while delivering high total application performance in all operating modes. The devices consume down to 90 µA/MHz in active mode and achieve up to 28 CoreMark/mA using IAR Embedded Workbench, version 6.40. In sleep mode, they consume 1.5 µA with full RAM retention, and 700 nA in back-up mode. Designed for battery-powered consumer, industrial and portable healthcare products, the family reduces overall power consumption with peripherals such as an LCD controller that includes ASCII character mapping, hardware scrolling and blinking support, and picoPower innovations, including SleepWalking, Peripheral Event System and wake-up times. Engineering samples of the SAM4L family are available now with production available in November 2012. The 64-pin WLCSP and 100-pin BGA packages are scheduled for January 2013. Pricing ranges from $3.90 to $4.12 each/1000.