The feature-rich Giant Gecko microcontroller helps developers solve complex IoT applications

Silicon Labs has expanded its energy-efficient industrial-grade microcontroller (MCU)EFM32 Gecko portfolio to deliver higher performance, more features and lower power consumption. The new EFM32GG11 Giant Gecko MCU family offers the most advanced feature set in the low-power MCU market for applications such as smart meters, asset tracking, industrial/building automation, wearables and personal healthcare. The Giant Gecko MCU integrates processing performance up to 72MHz, large storage capacity, peripherals and hardware accelerators, and a complete suite of software tools, including the industry-leading Micrium OS.

The increasing complexity of Internet of Things (IoT) applications is driving the need for multiple sensors, complex user interface displays, advanced algorithms, and wireless protocol stacks. As power budgets shrink, the MCU must also be as energy-efficient as possible in sleep mode to maximize battery life. Giant Gecko MCUS address these challenges by improving integration, performance and energy efficiency.

Tom Pannell, Senior Marketing Director of iot Products at Silicon Labs, said: "Giant Gecko MCUS deliver a user experience previously only available on high-power MCUS. Building on Gecko's ten years of evolution, the Giant Gecko family of products offers developers a quantum leap in performance, functionality and design capabilities."

The Giant Gecko family of products provides the following functions:

● ARM® Cortex®-M4 processor cores for performance-intensive applications.

● The largest on-chip storage capacity in its class (up to 2MB of flash and 512KB of RAM) to support more code size, debugging capabilities, over-the-air (OTA) updates, data logging, and rich graphical interfaces.

● SD/MMC and Octal/Quad-SPI memory interfaces support additional storage expansion capabilities for storage-intensive applications.

● Fast wake/sleep conversion and low-power architecture, allowing autonomous access to sensor inputs and supporting autonomous operation of low-power peripherals.

● Ultra-low power consumption: 77μA/MHz in active mode and 1.6μA in deep sleep mode.

● Giant Gecko MCU integrates a wealth of communication interfaces and controllers:

● 10/100 Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) for IP-based industrial control.

●  WiFi module that can connect to SDIO interface for IP-based wireless cloud connection.

● Single or dual CAN bus controllers for industrial control applications.

●  Crystal free USB controller for cost-effective, ultra-low power USB connection.

● TFT LCD display drivers and ultra-low power segment LCD drivers that support Alpha blending accelerators for richer user interfaces.

●  Current-based capacitive induction engine provides powerful touch input and ultra-low power touch wake-up, simplifying the development of capacitive induction applications.

The Giant Gecko family of products provides a secure and reliable platform for building applications with the best encryption algorithms. This family of MCUS has a highly energy-efficient safety accelerator that can run advanced algorithms to achieve higher performance and lower power consumption than traditional software methods. It also has a security management unit (SMU) to support precise security control over peripherals access, and an NIST-certified True Random number generator (TRNG) for higher security randomization.

Giant Gecko MCUS are available in QFN, QFP, and BGA package options with support for up to 192 pins, including many that are compatible with existing EFM32 MCU pins. Achieve the broadest possible software reuse by software compatibility with the entire EFM32 MCU and EFR32 Wireless Gecko SoC family, reducing developer design time and cost.

Silicon Labs' Simplicity Studio development tool supports Gecko MCUS and provides developers with one-click access to everything they need to complete their projects in a unified, Eclipse-based development environment. Simplicity Studio includes graphical configuration, advanced energy monitoring, network analysis, and capacitive touch configuration tools, as well as software samples and documentation. The Giant Gecko MCU itself supports Micrium OS, and developers can easily access the Micrium tools through Simplicity Studio.