New products sprouting
04
Mar
2025
This feels like an dearly spring with a lot of new products sprouting from major suppliers. Microchip was active in the AVR and PIC32 families while Renesas was busy cleaning up its RL78 portfolio and ST and Silicon Labs showing their latest wares. ST is now proposing a $0.21@10k STM32
Infineon had a couple of dozen new products in the PSoC4000 family, only variants of existing products.
Microchip launched the AVR® SD Family, ISO 26262-compliant to avoid systematic device faults, with clock speeds up to 20 MHz. They offer 32/64 KB of Flash, 4/8 KB of SRAM, and 256 bytes of EEPROM. The microcontrollers are available in 20-, 28-, 32- and 48-pin packages. The AVR® SD provides a dual-core lockstep CPU, Single-Error Correcting and Double-Error Detecting (SECDED) ECC on Flash, EEPROM and SRAM, Error Controller for functional safety, and Program and Debug Interface Disable (PDID) for security.
over 20 part numbers were released.
Other families had new variants, including the AVR64DA, the DSPIC33CK, PIC16 and PIC18.
Microchip also launched the PIC32A, a 200 MHz 32-bit General-Purpose MCUs with High-Speed Analog.
On the flip side, close to 200 products were NRNDed mostly in the PIC32MK and MZ families.
No change this month.
Nuvoton added a dozen parts, in the M2L31 and the M253L families.
No change.
Well, Renesas is continuing its spring clean-up with a wide NRND sweep across all its MCU families with over 4,500 parts affected, the bulk of which fell on the RL78.
SiLabs launched the EFR32MG26, a multiprotocol Wireless SoCs ideal for mesh IoT wireless connectivity using Matter, OpenThread, and Zigbee protocols for smart home, lighting, and building automation products. With key features like high-performance 2.4 GHz RF, low current consumption, an AI/ML hardware accelerator, and Secure Vault™, IoT device makers can create the smart, robust, and energy-efficient products that are secure from remote and local cyber-attacks. An ARM Cortex®-M33 running up to 78 MHz and up to 3 MB of flash and 512 kB of RAM enables more complex applications and provides headroom for Matter over Thread. Target applications include gateways and hubs, LED lighting, switches, sensors, locks, glass break detection, predictive maintenance, wake-word detection, and more.
23 part numbers were released starting at $3.68 @1k.
The new STM32U3 introduces significant advancements over previous STM32U series models, particularly in energy efficiency, security, and performance.
For Energy efficiency, the STM32U3 achieves twice the efficiency of the STM32U5 series, boasting a market-leading Coremark-per-milliwatt score of 117. This is achieved through near-threshold technology and AI-driven adaptive voltage scaling, which reduces dynamic power consumption to 10µA/MHz and stop current to 1.6µA.
STM32U3 vs. STM32L4: Compared to the STM32L4, the STM32U3 is five times more efficient in power consumption.
On security Enhancements, while the STM32U5 already featured strong security, the STM32U3 further improves protection by introducing a new key storage mechanism (Coupling and Chaining Bridge – CCB), ensuring secret keys remain permanently secure.
Like its predecessor, it supports SESIP3 and PSA Level 3 certifications, but with added factory-loaded attestation credentials for enhanced security compliance with RED and CRA regulations.
On Memory & Connectivity, the STM32U3 provides up to 1MB of Flash dual-bank memory and 256kB of SRAM, matching the STM32U5. It integrates advanced I3C digital connectivity, offering improved efficiency over previous I2C implementations.
While the STM32U5 focused on ultra-low-power applications like wearable health monitors and industrial sensors, the STM32U3 extends these benefits with further reduced power consumption, making it even more suitable for IoT applications that rely on minimal energy sources (e.g., coin cells, solar, thermoelectric).
ST is extending its low cost portfolio, the STM32C0 with the STM32C051.
It is an upgrade to the STM32C031, with double the Flash (64 KB) and RAM (12 KB) sizes while maintaining the same die size, packages, and pin-outs. This allows developers to scale applications easily without extensive code refactoring.
The STM32C091/2 was added too. These two microcontrollers are nearly identical, except the STM32C092 includes an FDCAN controller, making it suitable for industrial applications like robotics and factory automation. However, this feature reduces available RAM from 36 KB (STM32C091) to 30 KB (STM32C092) due to reserving 6 KB for FDCAN. Both models offer up to 256 KB of Flash, multiple I2C, SPI, and USART interfaces, a 12-bit ADC with up to 19 channels, and enhanced general-purpose timers. They also include a DMA controller with 7 channels, making them capable of running small graphical UIs without requiring an additional co-processor.
Prices have been revised down with the STM32C011J4M6 starting at $0.21 @10k.
Finally, ST has introduced the STM32WBA6 series, the next generation of power-efficient short-range wireless microcontrollers for IoT.
Key Upgrades Over STM32WBA5:
- Increased Memory: Up to 2MB Flash and 512KB RAM, doubling the storage capacity of STM32WBA5 for richer applications.
- Expanded Digital Interfaces: Adds USB High Speed, extra SPI, I2C, and UART ports, improving device connectivity.
- Enhanced Wireless Communication: Supports Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread, and Matter concurrently, improving versatility for IoT systems.
- Improved Wireless Performance: Increased sensitivity to -100dBm, enhancing connectivity over longer distances.
- Advanced Security: SESIP3 and PSA Level3 certifiable security, including cryptographic accelerators, TrustZone® isolation, and hardware random generators, ensuring compliance with RED and CRA regulations.
- Energy-Efficient Processing: Powered by Arm® Cortex®-M33 (100MHz) with floating-point and DSP extensions for better performance.
It is now in production, priced from $2.50 @10k.
TI added a few parts to its low cost portfolio (take that ST ;) ) with the M0C1103/4 and M0L1227 variants for the automotive market as well as the non-automotive MSPM0L1/2.
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