Looking for 4/8-bit low power MCU for a battery application

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cube007

Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 538
Helped: 12
Location: Australia

08 Apr 2003 15:49 Looking for 4/8-bit low power MCU for a battery application

Hello,

I’m looking for a 4-/8-bit low (ultra low) power MCU for a battery application. I need this for a LED torch. The device should available in small packages. For development it would be good to have a flash ROM. For the production it is enough to have a ROM
Which devices or companies could you recommend?

by,
cube007

dainis

Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 1451
Helped: 56

08 Apr 2003 16:22 Re: Looking for 4/8-bit low power MCU for a battery applicat

Look Texas Instruments: MSP430
MSP430 Ultra-Low Power Microcontrollers : MSP430 Home

The MSP430 family of ultra-low-power 16-bit RISC mixed-signal processors from Texas Instruments (TI) provides the ultimate solution for battery-powered measurement applications. Using leadership in both mixed-signal and digital technologies, TI has created the MSP430 which enables system designers to simultaneously interface to analog signals, sensors and digital components while maintaining unmatched low power.

Ultra-low-power architecture extends battery life
0.1uA RAM retention
0.8uA real-time clock mode
250uA / MIPS active
High-performance analog ideal for precise measurements
Modern 16-bit RISC CPU enables new applications at a fraction of the code size
In-system programmable Flash permits code changes, field upgrades and data logging
Complete integrated development environment starting at $49
Device pricing starting at $0.49

Ace-X

Joined: 25 Jan 2002
Posts: 590
Helped: 26

08 Apr 2003 20:12

Another one uC to be considered is HC08 Nitron family from Motorola. They are pretty good and come with free dev. tools from Metrowerks.
Here are more details: http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/BR1901.pdf

Ace-X.

Kripton2035

Joined: 19 Jul 2001
Posts: 587
Helped: 20
Location: Earth

08 Apr 2003 20:57

you can also take a look at fairchild ACE familly
1502 has very low power consumption.
they are all flash devices

www.fairchild.com

Analyzer

Joined: 18 Nov 2001
Posts: 414

08 Apr 2003 21:34

Hi,

Also cypress products have fairly low power consumption.Check their web site at www.cypress.com Their mcus' are very talented.

Analyzer.

cube007

Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 538
Helped: 12
Location: Australia

09 Apr 2003 13:27

Hello,

thank you all for the information. Perhaps the MSP430 is a bit oversized for a LED torch but it seems to be the lowest power device.
But what's about PIC and AVR? Are these devices not useable for a battery application?

by,
cube007

Kripton2035

Joined: 19 Jul 2001
Posts: 587
Helped: 20
Location: Earth

09 Apr 2003 15:15

there are low power pics (those with LF in their code)
look at microchip web site
pic 12f675 should be ok

Ratburn

Joined: 13 Jul 2001
Posts: 30

10 Apr 2003 4:10

Check out the Atmel ATtiny L series, eg ATtiny15L
Power Consumption at 1.6 MHz, 3V, 25°C
– Active: 3.0 mA
– Idle Mode: 1.0 mA
– Power-down: < 1 µA

Analyzer

Joined: 18 Nov 2001
Posts: 414

10 Apr 2003 20:36

Yep,
Kripton2035 is right, you can use PIC LF products (suffix to product code) but let me remember.A little designers use these mcu's coded with LF.So you may not find them easily.Check middle range microchip mcu's.

Analyzer.

ME

Joined: 14 Mar 2002
Posts: 1523
Helped: 13

14 Apr 2003 22:22

Application Note about Low Power Design Using PIC16/17 (AN606): http://www.microchip.com/download/appnote/pic16/00606b.pdf

vhdl_fpga

Joined: 27 Nov 2001
Posts: 10

15 Apr 2003 10:12 msp430

Check out the
Power Consumption at 1 MHz, 3V, 25°C
– Active: 280 µA
– Idle Mode: 3µA

Crisbe

Joined: 11 Mar 2002
Posts: 27

24 Apr 2003 13:55

Maybe the NEC 78K-Series is what U are looking for. Also very less power consumtion.
But always remember: U can have the less power using micro in galaxy. If your program isn't designed for low power, U won't get long battery-life. So try to enter Stop-Mode as often U can.

Regards

layoutdude

Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 27

25 Apr 2003 4:55

Why do you need a uC for a LED flashlight (torch)?

Seems like a severe case of overkill to me...

Kripton2035

Joined: 19 Jul 2001
Posts: 587
Helped: 20
Location: Earth

25 Apr 2003 11:23

layoutdude wrote:

Why do you need a uC for a LED flashlight (torch)?

Seems like a severe case of overkill to me...

to control the consumption and dim the led automatically to reduce this consumption

(I think it's for that reason ?!?)

cube007

Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 538
Helped: 12
Location: Australia

26 Apr 2003 10:55

That's right Kripton2035,

the uC is for controling the LED in different ways (dimming, flashing, ...) and for building the DC/DC converter. Perhaps I could use a standard DC/DC (Step Down, from 7,2V to 3,6 @ 350 mA -> Luxeon LED) but most of them are not current controlled.

by,
cube007

Google
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26 Apr 2003 10:55 Ads

elcielo

Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 854
Helped: 6

26 Apr 2003 23:17

Xemics SA

www.xemics.com

XE88LCXX

0.3 mA/MHz,not supply vol-tage dependent

ME

Joined: 14 Mar 2002
Posts: 1523
Helped: 13

09 May 2003 16:30

EM Microelectronic Ultra-low power 4-bit MICROCONTROLLERS:
http://www.emmarin.ch/Line.asp?IdLine=2
http://www.emmarin.ch/webfiles/product/mcu/mcu_prodtable.pdf

From EM's website:
EM offers the best MIPS/Watt ratio with ultra-low current as low as 0.3µA in halt mode. They are best suited for controlling and display applications in which power consumption is critical.
EM also offers MFP (MTP) versions of its ROM MCUs, best suited for engineering and development phases of a project.

wolf69

Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 117
Helped: 2

14 May 2003 10:02

the best uC on lowpower is farchild series.
Bye!

psubiaco

Joined: 06 Apr 2003
Posts: 42
Helped: 1
Location: Italy

17 May 2003 22:08

What is microcontroller consumption in respect of led consumption?
Led need high current, while every recent microcontroller need less than 1mA using cpuclock < 1MHz !
Bye.

cube007

Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 538
Helped: 12
Location: Australia

17 May 2003 23:16

That is correct psubiaco. The uC should have a very low power consumption when the LED is off so the battery won't discharge.
When the LED is on the power consumption of the uC isn't so important.

by,
cube007

cdcll

Joined: 15 Feb 2002
Posts: 183
Helped: 6

18 May 2003 2:43

one of the 4-bit & low power MCUs: W741E260 from Winbond, and it is very cheap.

ME

Joined: 14 Mar 2002
Posts: 1523
Helped: 13

18 May 2003 13:59

cube007 wrote:

Wouldn't it be better to switch the MCU completely off when you switch the torch off? This way the MCU power consumtion doesn't matter even when you turn off the torch.

cube007

Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 538
Helped: 12
Location: Australia

20 May 2003 10:58

Hello Me,

for an easy handling I would like to use push-buttons instead of a on-off switch. I have never developed a battery application before, so I don't know to solve this without a device which is powered the whole time.

by,
cube007

ME

Joined: 14 Mar 2002
Posts: 1523
Helped: 13

20 May 2003 11:01

You can use on/off push buttons

cube007

Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 538
Helped: 12
Location: Australia

20 May 2003 17:01

ME wrote:

You can use on/off push buttons

But with a on/off push button it is only possible to switch the LED on and off. And I would like to have more functions (e.g. dimming, ...)

by,
cube007

frenki

Joined: 28 Feb 2003
Posts: 11

21 May 2003 10:07

Look Elektor electronics - 11/2002 for LED Torch project project with PIC12C672.

ME

Joined: 14 Mar 2002
Posts: 1523
Helped: 13

21 May 2003 10:19

frenki wrote:

Look Elektor electronics - 11/2002 for LED Torch project project with PIC12C672.

Here's the LED Torch article from Elektor.

Sorry, but you need login in to view this attachment

ramesh

Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 1260
Helped: 5

21 May 2003 10:24

ATtiny15L (8-pin DIP/SOIC) and ATtiny26L (20-pin DIP/SOIC) are 8-bit AVR RISC microcontrollers from ATMEL usefull for small applications where space and power-saving is very much required. Both devices have 10-bit on-chip ADC and PWMs.

katos

Joined: 06 May 2003
Posts: 26

21 May 2003 18:18

Be carefull with the Nitron family of devices from Motorola. If you don't want to do anything fast would be OK, but you should know that it uses an average of 4 clock cycles per instruction so these devices are quite slow.

Katos