ENERGY MICRO is expanding its energy-saving ARM Cortex M3-based EFM32 Gecko microcontroller family with the addition of a new product series that features the ARM Cortex-M0™ core. The new M0-based MCUs will be marketed and sold under the name Zero Gecko and will round out ENERGY MICRO’s existing portfolio of low-cost, energy-efficient MCUs. The Zero Gecko MCU will be pin and software-compatible with its companion M3-based products and will likewise consume only one-fourth the power of alternative solutions (i.e., competing M0-based products). Scheduled for customer availability in the fourth quarter of 2011, the new Zero Gecko MCU is intended for use in battery-powered applications such as energy metering systems, building automation, portable sports and medical electronics, and alarm and security systems.

Products from the Cortex M3-based Tiny Gecko line are sampling now, and initial starter kits have been announced for the end of April. When executing code from Flash memory, these devices have a current consumption of only 160µA/MHz and thus consume even less power than their predecessors. 
Also new from ENERGY MICRO are RF transceiver ICs for energy-efficient radio (wireless) solutions that go by the name of EFR4D Draco. These, too, make do with only 25% of the power required by comparable competing products. Based on an ARM Cortex M0 core, the Draco radio ICs achieve receive and transmit current consumption as low as 5mA and 6mA respectively. Samples of the first transceiver-only and SoC products are scheduled to become available in the fourth quarter of 2011. The radio performance of the EFR4D products will also be higher than existing alternatives, with a maximum output power of +17dBm at 868MHz, a receive sensitivity of -121dbm, FSK 1.2kbps and high receiver selectivity, as well as blocking and image frequency rejection functions. The product line will span the complete RF spectrum between 167MHz and 2500MHz, and it will support the industry’s broadest range of radio (wireless) protocols.

ENERGY MICRO also has a lot to offer in the way of tools! Simplicity Studio is a new software suite that enables users to instantly access all tools, documentation, software and other resources needed to develop systems based on ENERGY MICRO’s energy-efficient EFM32 Gecko microcontrollers. To help increase productivity, Simplicity Studio configures itself automatically after the user selects the target microcontroller from a drop-down menu. Simplicity Studio is free of charge and can be downloaded on the ENERGY MICRO website. An especially time-saving feature of the tool is that it enables users to be automatically updated with the latest information: Users receive automatic notification of new software releases, documentation, firmware updates, etc., and can also access the changes/updates via a protocol (change-log). In addition, Simplicity Studio brings together Energy Micro’s growing portfolio of no-cost, energy saving tools, like the already introduced energyAware Profiler and a power debugger for optimizing code to achieve the best possible energy usage. Also in the lineup is the energyAware Designer for handling the traditionally time-consuming problem of debugging I/O pin conflicts.
All of these innovations are contributing to the growing success of ENERGY MICRO’s microcontroller product range.

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