Low-power MCUs for Internet of Things

Semiconductor companies step up development to ride trend for connected devices.

MCUs are now gearing up for the next big thing in the market: the Internet of Things or IoT. The main goal is to find the correct specification where the trade-off between power consumption and performance reaches the right price level.

"There is really nothing different between the development agendas for IoT and any other devices," said Andreas Eieland, product marketing director of Atmel Corp.'s microcontroller business unit. "Low power, differentiating factors, and the right performance and power mix are the key features." Atmel's SAM L21 family implements several design methods to minimize power.

"The SAM L21 has reached a ULPBench score of 185.8, the highest ever recorded for the low power benchmark," Eieland said. "Techniques include gating power, in addition to clocks in sleep modes, and back biasing the SRAM to reduce leakage, core-independent peripherals, and using the most optimized Arm cores, Event System and Sleepwalking so that peripherals can cooperate."

Infineon Technologies AG adopts new digital control, integrated module, fast switches and selective power-down to cut overall power in the system.

Microchip Technology Inc. employs the low-power analog and eXtreme Low Power technology in its existing line of PIC microcontrollers.

"Many of our current customers are looking to take their existing products and create connected versions," said Mike Ballard, senior manager of Microchip's home appliance solutions group. "The additional technologies needed to create IoT products are a simple migration for our customers from their current 8, 16 and 32-bit PIC MCU-based solutions."

Marching toward 32 bits

Additional feature sets and communication protocols on MCUs will bring more value to systems, said Andy Wong, regional marketing manager of Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific's MCU and sensors. But will MCUs for the IoT market need more horsepower? "The price gap between 32-bit and 8-bit MCUs is narrowing, while the former provide higher performance and more features to the user and developer."

Atmel's Eieland said there is room for both, depending on the application. In simple edge nodes such as a glass break sensor, for instance, an 8-bit MCU will support more than enough processing power. Most smart lighting products are based on 8-bit MCUs. "However for uses that are more complex, the ones that store the wireless stacks and profiles on the micro instead of in the transceiver, it is dominated by 32-bit, especially Arm-based products."

Microchip has IoT applications using 8, 16and 32-bit MCUs, with automotive, consumer, industrial and medical as the key segments in the domain. The other hot market is connected wearable devices. "The next one could well be home automation," said Eieland of Atmel.

Infineon's Wong sees the automotive and industrial sectors in the lead. "The supply and value chain through the manufacturing process are the first coherent movers because cars and factories are inherently a closed and controlled system where IoT can bring significant improvement in productivity. We also see the necessity of a strong security layer to protect proprietary information and assets."

Infineon has developed easy-to-deploy semiconductor technologies to counter growing security threats in the IoT, ranging from basic authentication products to advanced implementations safeguarding integrity, authenticity and confidentiality of information.

Atmel is emphasizing security in MCUs and radios while boasting dedicated CryptoAuthentication products.

Contributed by Majeed Ahmad, author of Smartphone, Nokia's Smartphone Problem, Mobile Commerce 2.0, Essential 4G Guide and Age of Mobile Data: The Wireless Journey to All Data 4G Networks. Majeed has been writing for technology and trade media for more than 18 years.

See a comparison table of power management IC suppliers on GlobalSources.com