Oslo, Norway, 21 September, 2012 – Energy Micro, the energy friendly microcontroller and radio company, will display a range of real-world applications for its EFM32 Gecko families of ARM®-based microcontrollers (MCUs) at Electronica 2012. The company will demonstrate how its low-power devices greatly extend battery life of a variety of portable electronic products.
The products on show will include two for mobile health applications. The first is a hand-held heart pacemaker monitor in which the MCU manages the communications protocol, monitors the sensors and controls the user interface. The second is a sensor powered that attaches to a person’s temple. Here, it monitors their temperature and sounds an alarm if they are in danger of heat exhaustion, which is a potential problem for fire-fighters, outdoor workers and sportspeople. In this application, the operating life of a single CR1616 coin-cell battery is several months.
Energy Micro will also demonstrate energy management applications for its MCUs, including one for battery-powered and energy harvesting products in which the EFM32 Tiny Gecko controls EnOcean’s radio position switch in a wireless module. The same MCU is also used in a range of modules that allow utility meter readings to be collected via a wireless connection, reducing operating expenditure for utility companies and increasing billing accuracy for consumers.
Other innovative applications for Energy Micro’s energy-saving MCUs, which will be on display at the show, include the Scubapro-Uwatec Meridian dive computer. This is the world’s first 32-bit watch-dive computer with an integrated heart rate monitor that provides comprehensive dive information. Dive profiles can be downloaded, edited and reviewed on a personal computer. The company will also demonstrate a novel electric window remote control that uses a smartphone-like user interface controlled by an EFM32 MCU.
Relative to microcontrollers of comparable processing power, EFM32 Gecko devices achieve up to 4-times longer operation in battery-powered applications, primarily through a combination of low active power consumption, low standby current and autonomous peripheral operation. They feature a peripheral reflex system that enables peripherals to communicate with each other without using the CPU and offer a combination of fast processing and very fast wake-up times from a choice of energy saving modes.
About Energy Micro
Energy Micro is a global provider of energy friendly microcontrollers and RF transceivers based on the ARM® Cortex™ processor core. Consuming a quarter of the energy of competing products, the company’s ultra low power EFM32 Gecko MCUs and EFR4 Draco radios target energy sensitive applications, including smart metering, building automation, security systems portable health and fitness equipment and smart accessories. The products are supported by Energy Micro’s Simplicity Studio, the easy-to-use software console that helps to reduce embedded system development times by a half. Further information is available at www.energymicro.com
