MCU for portable medical devices draws very low power

19 May 2004 DSP, Micros & Memory Products & Solutions

Designers of portable medical applications can now simplify their designs and reduce time to market using a new chip from Texas Instruments. Said to be the industry's first single-chip, ultra-low power microcontroller for these applications, the MSP430FG43x family, optimised for portable medical devices, can help designers meet application requirements without having to rely on multichip solutions.

Three precision operational amplifiers make the signal-chain-on-chip (SCoC) MSP430FG43x family highly suited for applications such as personal blood pressure monitors and pulsoxy, pH and glucose meters. The family offers MCU configurations with nine timer channels, a 200 kSaps high performance 12 bit ADC, dual 12 bit DAC, three configurable precision op-amps, one universal sync/async comms interface (USART), 48 I/O pins, a 128-segment LCD driver, with memory configurations of up to 60 KB of Flash and 2 KB of RAM.

To ensure the robustness of an application, a zero-power brown-out reset function, supply voltage supervisor and fail-safe clock system are provided. An integrated direct memory access (DMA) controller increases the signal processing capabilities. The expanded DMA, with triggers from all peripherals, accelerates mixed-signal processing by providing sophisticated data transfer without CPU interaction. With a flexible clock system with five low-power modes, ultra-low-power performance is achieved. The MSP430FG43x family features a typical standby current consumption as low as 1,1 µA with a realtime-clock function active.

The MSP430FG43x devices are fully compatible with the MSP-FET430P430 toolkit, which includes a JTAG interface, target board, Flash devices and a complete integrated development environment including a debugger, assembler/linker and limited C-compiler. The tool supports realtime in-system development, accessing the Flash device's embedded emulation including programming, full-speed, breakpoint and trace capabilities.

Further reading:

Unlock power efficiency with the new generation of ultra-low-power MCUs
DSP, Micros & Memory
STMicroelectronics has announced a one-hour webinar on its STM32U0, the company’s latest generation of entry-level, ultra-low-power MCUs.

Read more...

---

Using AMD HLS to supercharge your design performance
DSP, Micros & Memory
This workshop explores the power and capabilities of High-Level Synthesis (AMD Vitis HLS) to dramatically accelerate embedded software to hardware speeds.

Read more...

---

Powering business resilience and field operations
Infrastructure Products & Solutions
[Sponsored] The Anker 757 Portable Power Station emerges as a strategic asset for businesses looking to overcome power instability and the demand for operational efficiency in remote and field-based environments.

Read more...

---

The 8-bit survival syndrome – Part 2
DSP, Micros & Memory
Just like the 4-bit pre-microcontroller, the 8-bit MCU has been finding ways to stick around. Their features and speeds have been improving, offering competitive reasons to work with them.

Read more...

---

Enhanced code protection for USB µC portfolio
Future Electronics DSP, Micros & Memory
To help easily incorporate USB power and communication functionality into embedded systems, Microchip Technology has launched the AVR DU family of microcontrollers.

Read more...

---

General-purpose MCU with RISC-V architecture
EBV Electrolink DSP, Micros & Memory
Renesas has released a general-purpose MCU to enhance its existing RISC-V portfolio, and this is its first MCU using a RISC-V core developed internally at the company.

Read more...

---

8-bit MCU with I3C support
Avnet Silica DSP, Micros & Memory
The PIC18-Q20 8-bit microcontrollers from Microchip easily interface with devices operating in multiple voltage domains, and the built-in I3C interface supports higher-speed and lower-power data transfers than I2C.

Read more...

---

An evolutionary step in customisable logic
Altron Arrow DSP, Micros & Memory
Microchip Technology is offering a tailored hardware solution with the launch of its PIC16F13145 family of microcontrollers, which are outfitted with a new Configurable Logic Block module.

Read more...

---

MCU for battery-powered applications
Altron Arrow DSP, Micros & Memory
Included in ST’s family of devices is the STM32U031, an ultra-low-power MCU featuring an ARM Cortex-M0+ 32-bit core running at up to 56 MHz.

Read more...

---

Serial SRAM up to 4 MB
EBV Electrolink DSP, Micros & Memory
The chips are designed to provide a lower-cost alternative to traditional parallel SRAM products, and include optional battery backup switchover circuitry in the SRAM memory to retain data on power loss.

Read more...

---