Power Management Features of STMicro STM32L Family

The first thing that has an overall effect in keeping power consumption low is that ST Micro used a process technology that keeps the leakage current low as far as possible. The 130nm proprietary technology is optimized for ultra-low leakage to maximize efficiency when the microcontroller is active or when sleeping. The ST Micro has also succeeded in bringing down the power consumption by on-board Flash memory. Additional feature that help is an integrated DMA which can keep the peripherals active when the processor and the flash can be turned off.

The STM32L series provides many additional features for optimizing the power consumption. Several ultra low power modes are available that can help minimize power consumption.

• Low-Power Run mode at 32kHz, typical consumption is 10 micro-amps
• Low-Power Sleep mode with one timer active, typical consumption at about 6 micro-amps
• STOP mode: Real-Time Clock (RTC), context preserved, RAM retention at 1.3 micro-amps
• STOP mode: no RTC, context preserved, RAM retention at 0.5 micro-amps
• Stand-By mode: RTC, back-up register preserved, at 1.0 micro-amps
• Stand-By mode: no RTC, Back-up register preserved, at 270 nanoamps 

The family uses dynamic voltage scaling to reduce the internal operating voltage for medium and low operating frequencies. The STM32L circuitry is can deliver high performance at low voltages.Analog features available on the family devices are capable of operating at supply voltages as low as 1.8V. The digital devices can go as low as 1.65V saving battery life.

16 bit processors are not necessarily overkill for smaller applications!

I had briefly talked about how apparently 16 Bit Microprocessors are better Options in 8 Bit applications!!! You can actually get some additional advantages because of the ultra low power design of the processor. You could read about it in some more details at this new article here. 

DSP Directory-2010

The reputed magazine EDN I talked about a while back also publishes an annual DSP directory that lists currently available DSP products. DSPs are specialized processors on silicon, and hence it is in our ambit of interest. They are processors but not the general purpose kind. They are specialized to carry out the mathematical operations you need to process signals. Thus they have a different kind of architecture and let you process a lot of different kinds of digital signals that make a whole range of products possible. we plan to run a tutorial course on DSPs and their uses soon. Any volunteers!

Resources


The 2010 directory

Atom Moves into Embedded Space- The Queensbay family

Read about the new Atom family that is tailored for embedded applications here.

Embedded Resources

Those of you who are interested in embedded system design the EDN magazine has a resource dedicated to the topic. Find it here.

Microprocessors Directory

We are here to wonder at those little pieces of silicon that provide processing power to a whole range of things; starting from toys, appliances to systems that fly a plane and everything in-between. Various kinds of computing devices and mobile devices too include one or more such processors. Is there one place you could go to and find out what's available?

This document I am mentioning here is one such place which has details about all the currently available processor chips compiled by a very respected publication in Electronic Design the EDN. It has been around a long time and this directory too has been around a long time too. This version is the 36th annual version. Visit the link below to read in details about this devices or even download a PDF version for keeping with you until the next one is out!

There are some 70 manufacturers listed in the directory peddling all types of processors starting from 8 bit one to 16bits, 32 bits and 64 bit devices. The directory also tells you about processor cores that are available and you could incorporate a suitable one into your own silicon product.

The 36th Annual Microprocessor Directory

Atom getting upgraded to dual core

Intel CEO announced recently that the Atom chip, the work horse for netbooks, will be upgraded to a dual core version. Typically Atom N450 at 1.66 GHz and Atom N470 at 1.83 GHz are used in the netbooks. Though the netbooks are meant to be used for web browsing and may be some basic productivity applications. As is usual there is pressure for increasing the performance. This announcement seems to be aimed at that demand. However the demand for netbooks seems to have flattened out.

Now the issue is whether one needs a more powerful netbook, making if more like a regular laptop or it will merge into a new kind of device that is a smartphone, a tablet a book reader all rolled into one! Then the question is do we need a dual core Atom when regular machines have many multi core processor versions already! Read about the announcement here.

Introduction to Microcontrollers & their differences with Microprocessors

Here is a beautiful presentation by Prof.John A Chandy of his course ECE110 at the university of Connecticut. please review the same if you need some preliminary idea on the subject.

Debouncing of Switches in MSP430 micro Family

Following is a link to an article on EDN about switch de-bounce. The concept is general enough to be used in many situations. The article can be downloaded as a PDF file for later reference.

MSP430's port-interrupt-request logic helps debounce contacts

Fundamentals of Memory

Here is a nice course on using various types of memory. Check it out!

TI MSP 430-Great replacement for 8 bit Microcontrollers!

MSP 430 is a very low power line of microcontrollers. TI is offering these now at very low cost so that replacing the 8 bit processors in embedded systems. You obviously get a performance upgrade that way without increasing you BOM costs.Read about the MSP 430 here; TI MSP 430 - A Good Fit For Portable Mixed Signal Designs.

Intel to ship 48 core processors by end June!

Intel announced that they are going to ship samples of a 48 core processor to researcher soon.Limited quantities of the processor will be sent primarily to academic institutions. The chip may not become commercially available as it is part of a research project, but features from the processor could be implemented in future chips. The chip is to operate around the 1.66 to 1.83 GHz clock range. Rather than boosting the clock speed to get higher performance, increasing number cores on a chip is a power efficient way of boosting performance. The cores are connected as a mesh on the chip.

Thus the cores have multiple points of receive and transfer data. Routers help the data exchange and there are 24 of them on chip. A core has on-chip buffers that can instantly exchange data across all the cores.

Power management features include controlling the operating frequency and changing voltage levels. You would be able to switch off processors/cores that are not needed.

NEWS: Texas Instruments; New announcements

Texas Instruments has a family of high performance processors positioned at the video processing segment. This is known as the Da Vinci family. Recent announcements include TMS 320 DM8168 member of the family that can process video compression of up to three HD channels.The chip contains a 1 GHz Cortex A8 and DSP resources. The link leads you to details of what can be done with the chip. A DVR block diagram suggested by TI is illustrated below.

We intend to feature the new products here, they represent a interesting new family of devices that manage the increasingly popular video processing well.

NEWS: Intel 8 core Processor

Within 2 days of announcement of the AMD Opteron 12 core Intel announced a 8 core Xeon processor that is aimed at high performance server market like the AMD chip. These new Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500 line of server chips have been designed for x86 multiprocessor servers. The chip has 8 cores and can execute 16 threads. Servers designing in these processors can have up to 256 of these. Just imagine the amount of computing power that makes available! To accommodate such high performance designs the memory bandwidth and capacity have been enhanced several orders of magnitude better than earlier generation chips. 4.6 and 8 core versions are going to be available.

NEWS: AMD 12 core Processor

This is one very exciting news, precisely the kind of happening that made us launch this fan club! We talked about how Intel 4004 started it all at the launch program. That has 2300 transistors on board. This 12 core processor has 2 billion of them! That is roughly a million times increase!

The latest AMD Opteron chip comes after the 6 core version. This 12 core version is expected to double the performance of the processor over the 6 core version. We are not likely to see this on the desktop soon but it will help with the servers in data centers. Read the news announcement here.

This also amazes me for another reason. This is a x86 compatible architecture! The staying power of the architecture is unbelievable! It started with the IBM PC back in early eighties and almost three decades on the architecture still lives!

Management Committee for the Program

A management committee for running the Silicon Processors Fan Club was announced at the inaugural program of the club.
Program Managers

Anup Kolya, Senior lecturer, CSE
Radhakrishna Jana, Senior lecturer, CSE
Anupam Sen, senior Lecturer, CSE

Program Coordinators


Amitabha Acharya, Lecturer, IT
A Student volunteer from amongst student members

We expect to carry on a very active schedule for the club where everyone particpating will benefit.

Calling All Students and Any Other Interested Souls!!

We look at the slew of processor devices that come out almost everyday and wonder at the capabilities of these silicon based processors. We have created a location here to be able to stay in touch and cross-fertilize each other minds by discussing the wonderful innovations that are being published. Simply become a follower so that you get an alert on everything new that is published here. Feel free to comment on items published. Discussions keep things lively!

Feel fee to write up an article and forward to us and we'll publish it with due credits given. Invite friends to join in the community! Request them to participate the same way!

Silicon Processors Fan Club is launched

Though the initial announcement had been made a while back, activities never got off the ground. We made the inaugural function yesterday, finally! The we see it it should act as a co-curricular program for the CSE and IT departments of the Mallabhum Institute of Technology. This is the club where we shall meet and discuss these dinky little wonderful things made of silicon. The processors that come on silicon today is far more powerful than when they actually first came about! We had a discussion about the very first commercial processor on a silicon chip. The Intel 4004 !

Though it looks ridiculously simplistic today, it had all the characteristics of the much more powerful processors of today, much like a human baby has all the limbs and organs of a grown man yet in a very small scale. A 4 bit processor! That's a laugh! But, it could actually function as a general purpose processor.

Like many other inventions the full potential of the creation was not realized by anyone, it was launched as another option to designing electronic systems. But it's potential was realized by the time the processor family evolved to the 8088 and became the engine for the IBM PC and the clone brigade! Did anyone really think it'll become what it eventually became! A piece of equipment we cannot live without and that spawned the notebook avatar. Many people will swear that a laptop is simply an extension of their limbs!