Energy Micro

Energy Micro is a company that develops, markets and sells the world's most energy friendly microcontrollers, based on the industry leading ARM® Cortex™-M3 32-bit architecture. The company was founded in 2007 by experienced semiconductor professionals with previous expertise from Chipcon, Texas Instruments, Atmel and Nordic Semiconductor. Linear Technology & Energy Micro Demonstrate the Future of Smart Energy Harvesting Linear Technology and Energy Micro have combined their expertise in energy harvesting power supplies and ultralow power 32-bit microcontrollers to produce a ground-breaking demonstration at Electronica 2010, showcasing the opportunities for smart energy harvesting applications. Based on Energy Micro's low cost starter development kit, the demonstration relies on Linear Technology's LTC®3588 piezoelectric energy harvesting power supply and Energy Micro's ARM® Cortex™-M3 enabled EFM32 Gecko microcontroller to create a wireless sensor node acquiring data from a 3-axis accelerometer and transmitting it over a Zigbee RF transceiver. The energy harvested from a piezoelectric transducer is stored on a capacitor bank for later consumption by the accelerometer and radio according to the MCU's optimized sequencing software. The EFM32 Gecko spends the majority of its time in sleep mode until woken by the LTC3588's ‘power good' signal. The MCU monitors energy levels at all times to ensure total circuit consumption stays below harvested energy levels. "Using sustainable kinetic, photovoltaic and thermal energy sources to power microcontrollers requires energy harvesting power supplies capable of both very high efficiency conversion and very low quiescent power loss, " said Don Paulus, Vice President & General Manager of Power Products at Linear Technology. "At the same time, microcontrollers have to play their part, offering very low power operating modes and the application software flexibility to make the best use of the harvested energy - the EFM32 Gecko MCU provides such attributes." Øyvind Janbu, CTO, Energy Micro said, "Linear Technology's ultralow power energy harvesting power supplies match perfectly well with the needs of the EFM32's energy modes. This demonstration illustrates the tremendous opportunities open to designers of smarter energy harvesting products. There is no penalty for using 32-bit microcontrollers in such applications, the component technology already exists and it's available off-the-shelf." Further information on the energy harvesting solution from Linear Technology and Energy Micro can be found at www.energymicro.com/energyharvesting

Simplicity Studio development suite dramatically cuts MCU development time Energy Micro introduces a complete graphical user interface development suite for its EFM®32 Gecko microcontrollers. Simplicity Studio™ will contain all the information, documentation and tools required by hardware, firmware and software engineers to more quickly and effectively develop embedded systems. Geir Førre, Energy Micro's President and CEO said, "'Simplicity' and 'energy friendliness' have always been maintained as Energy Micro's two most essential core values. Today, we are committing to achieving a long term target of helping designers cut hardware and software development times for MCU based systems by a half, and Simplicity Studio will be one important step along the way." "With our pioneering energyAware™ software tools we have already made significant progress towards achieving this goal, and with the development of the comprehensive Simplicity Studio we will continue to push the limits of and set new standards for efficient embedded development." Øyvind Grotmol, Energy Micro's newly appointed VP of Simplicity, said, "Simplicity is vital in achieving significant reductions in development times and by helping to make the development process as simple as possible we aim to deliver the efficiency savings that have long been waited for. Our goal is for Energy Micro to become as equally well known and respected for its effective embedded development suite as it is for its world leading energy friendly microcontrollers." Key elements of the Simplicity Studio already available include the patent pending energyAware Profiler, the world's first and easy-to-use energy and power debugging tool for embedded microcontroller system development, and energyAware Designer, for removing the traditionally time-consuming problem of debugging I/O pin conflicts. More innovative tools, developed both internally and by third parties, will be included in the Simplicity Studio following its release during Q1'2011.

New low energy sensor interface Energy Micro has added a generic low energy sensor interface to its EFM32 microcontroller product family. The LESENSE function block enables autonomous monitoring of up to 16 external sensors in the microcontroller's sub-microamp Deep Sleep mode. Able to run independently of the EFM32's ARM® Cortex™-M3 core, LESENSE can be used to create highly integrated, ultra low power, sensor solutions. Particularly suitable for battery operated systems, the sensor interface is designed to operate with virtually any type of analog sensor control scheme, including capacitive, inductive and resistive types. Among a variety of uses, LESENSE can be configured to support autonomous capacitive touch pad- and slider based products, and gas and water metering products relying on inductive rotation sensors. Geir Førre, President and CEO of Energy Micro said, "The existing EFM32 Gecko microcontroller family is already a world leader in terms of its low energy consumption and the range of energy saving features it provides designers with. LESENSE is yet another unique innovation that really supports energy friendly design and significantly helps extend battery life." The LESENSE function block will first be made available in Energy Micro's Tiny Gecko microcontroller family, sampling and in volume during Q1'2011. Pin and software compatible with the bigger Gecko microcontrollers, the Tiny Gecko provides users with a wide range of low power peripheral function blocks, including an 8-channel, 12-bit ADC using 350μA at full resolution and 1Msamples/sec conversion rate, and a low energy UART consuming as little as 150nA, and a new 8x20 segment LCD controller. Later in 2011, the Giant Gecko microcontroller family, offering Flash up to 1MB and USB connectivity, will also include the new LESENSE functionality. www.energymicro.com