Lowest power consumption claimed for wireless MCU

　　Looking to meet demand for low power components for a range of battery powered IoT applications, Redpine Signals has launched the RS14100, which it says is the lowest-power multiprotocol wireless MCU currently available.

　　The MCU, which features an ARM Cortex-M4F core running at up to 180MHz, offers a choice of dual-band 802.11abgn Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5 and 802.15.4, which can be used for Thread or ZigBee connectivity.

　　Dhiraj Sogani, vp of marketing, said: “We’ve put a lot of effort into developing the system architecture; it’s not just about taking advantage of the power savings from the latest process node. These devices are fabbed on a 40nm line, but we’ve had to develop new techniques that reduced power consumption even further.”

　　According to Sogani, the RS14100 – which the company also calls WiSeMCU, short for wireless secure MCU – has a Wi-Fi standby associated power of less than 50?A. “This is three to four times less than the competition,” he contended. Meanwhile, data throughput is said to be greater than 90Mbit/s.

　　The RS14100 includes a Cortex-M4F core running at up to 180MHz acting as an applications processor. Sogani said this features a ‘gear shifting’ capability, allowing it to respond to processing needs. In its lowest power mode, the M4F draws 12?A/MHz. Also featured is a four threaded processor for networking and security tasks and a physically unclonable function.

　　A choice of SoC and module packages is available, including an integrated module measuring 4.6mm x 7.8mm.

　　Redpine has also launched the RS9116, available in hosted and embedded configurations. Similar to the RS14100, the device is supplied without the Cortex-M4F core.