Named ad SAM4L, the new MCU family is built around ARM® Cortex™-M4 processor, implementing its proprietary ultra-low power picoPower® technology and other peripherals like user interfaces.
Taking advantage of the picoPower® power-saving innovations like SleepWalking, Peripheral Event System, unrivaled wake-up times and intelligent peripherals, the MCU family consumes just one third the power of existing solutions, said Atmel.
For example, the SAM4L family consumes 90uA/MHz in active mode, lower than any competitor in the market. They also achieved up to 28 CoreMark™/mA using IAR Embedded Workbench, version 6.40. In sleep mode, the SAM4L devices consume 1.5uA with full random access memory (RAM) retention, and 700nA in back-up mode.
The built-in Peripheral Event System is a real-time network that allows peripherals to communicate directly with one another without using the central processing unit (CPU).
In addition, SleepWalking technology allows a peripheral to qualify and evaluate incoming data without the use of the CPU, eliminating unneeded, power-consuming CPU wake-ups to conserve power. This allows the peripherals to qualify an event and decide to wake-up whether it is from capacitive touch, I2C address match or an ADC threshold. The SAM4L devices feature peripherals designed to reduce the overall power consumption such as the innovative LCD controller that include ASCII character mapping, hardware scrolling and blinking support.
Engineering samples are now available. For more information, see below Product News
[sws_toggle1 title="Product News "> The SAM4L family has two series available, the LS series and the full-featured LC series.
There are 48-, 64- and 100-pin package options available in both QFPand QFN. Atmel's SAM4L-EK evaluation kit is also available with the SAM4L family to help accelerate designs.
The SAM4L-EK includes an embedded debugger, power measurement, LCD, USB and capacitive touch. In addition, the SAM4L-EK measures the current consumed by the MCU through independent circuitry, and displays this in real time.
The SAM4L-EK is supported by the Atmel Studio 6 integrated development environment (IDE), which features project examples, debugging support and other resources. More information about the SAM4L device is available at http://www.atmel.com/SAM4L.
Engineering samples of the Atmel SAM4L family are available now with production availability in November 2012.
Engineering samples in QFP and QFN packages are available in October 2012.
The 64-pin WLCSP and 100-pin BGA packages are scheduled for January 2013. Pricing for the SAM4L family ranges from $3.90 to $4.12 in 1000-piece quantities. All SAM4L devices are supported by Atmel Studio 6 and the SAM4L-EK evaluation kit. The evaluation kit is available in the Atmel store: http://store.atmel.com. [/sws_toggle1]