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Hi Gordon, Can you explain more about the Low Power capabilities of this new MCU range and why it is suitable for use in my portable application? Thank you !

Hi Gordon, Can you explain more about the Low Power capabilities of this new MCU range and why it is suitable for use in my portable application? Thank you !

Well there are several improvements and new features that Kinetis brings to market.

Firstly as this family is based on a 90nm Thin Film Storage manufacturing process which can reduced the dynamic run current consumption by up to as much as 1/3 or previous manufacturing technologies.  the new Kinetis MCU family consumes as little as 200uA/MHz in run mode with clocks to CPU and all peripherals active.  In addition with the new features of the ARM Cortex M4 Core, specifically the MAC unit, SIMD unit and enhanced DSP instructions, help reduce further the number of cycles needed to process complex algorithms futher reducing the run current consumption.

The other major benefit of the Kinetis range is the range of 10 flexible modes of operation, enabling designs to select the most appropriate mode to optimize the power consumption at any given moment.  The modes of operation are the standard Run, Wait & Stop modes. Plus you have the ability to scale the CPU and peripheral clocks down to 2MHz and enter into Very Low Power Run (VLPR) & Wait Modes (VLPW) and as an extension to these modes there is a Very Low Power Stop Mode.  Then with the additional of the NEW Low Leakage Wake-up Unit LLWU there are a range of modes where by the logic is completely shut down to further reduce leakage and overall power consumption. There are Low Leakage Stop (LLS) & Very Low Leakage Stop 1, 2 & 3 (VLLS1, VLLS2, VLL3). Each offering a different levels of functionality. In the lowest power mode, VLLS3 the Kinetis family will consume as little of 500nA.  The family also supports an extremely fast wake up time of 4uS.

Other features of the Kinetis family include

     - Clock gating, to turn of clocks to unused moduels.

     - Indepent &  secure RTC with a dedicated 32KHz OSC and separate power system

     - Low Voltage Detect

Hope this answers questions.

Best Regards,

Gordon