SILICON LABS INTRODUCES INDUSTRY’S LOWEST VOLTAGE MCUS

SILICON LABS INTRODUCES INDUSTRY'S LOWEST VOLTAGE MCUS

Silicon Laboratories Inc. (NASDAQ: SLAB), a leader in high-performance, analog-intensive, mixed-signal ICs, today announced the industry’s first microcontrollers (MCUs) capable of operating down to 0.9 V, enabling portable devices to derive power from a single-cell battery. For products powered by user-replaceable batteries such as wireless sensor networks, smoke alarms, portable medical devices, remote controls, computer peripherals and portable audio devices, the C8051F9xx family enables smaller form factor products, longer battery life and lower overall system cost in both single- and dual-cell modes.

–C8051F9xx Doubles Battery Life for Battery-Powered Products–

The C8051F9xx family’s novel 8-bit architecture with an integrated highefficiency dc-dc boost converter, which can supply up to 65 mW of power for both internal MCU use and to drive other components, creates a true single-cell battery system solution.

In many low-power applications, operating from 0.9 up to 3.6 V, the MCU is in sleep mode for the majority of the time, waking up periodically to capture data. The C8051F9xx utilizes innovative design techniques to deliver a typical sleep-mode current of less than 50 nA. The MCU can wake-up from its low-power sleep mode with the CPU operating at 25 MIPS and ready to make an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) measurement within just two microseconds. This allows the MCU to spend a minimum amount of time performing measurements and algorithms.