After first targeting the mid range of Cortex-M3 MCUs, later the smaller, low end devices, Energy Micro® has now announced details of its EFM®32 Giant Gecko microcontroller product family. Many applications can't be implemented with 256 KB of Flash, particularly when RTOS support is requested by customers. For energy sensitive applications with high memory requirements, the 32-bit Giant Gecko (GG) will provide Flash configurations up to 1 MB paired with 128 KB of SRAM and add an option of embedded USB device, host and OTG connectivity.

There will be 48 EFM32GG microcontrollers offering a choice of 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024 KB Flash memory blocks and a RAM of 32KB or 128KB. The microcontrollers’ pin and software compatibility with the existing Gecko product family means designers can develop products using the existing Gecko microcontroller and migrate to Giant Gecko when the higher memory parts enter production. Of course that is as long as the designers do not use USB for the design, which is not available yet on the existing EFM32 devices. Package options will include QFN64, QFP100 and BGA112.

Built around the Cortex-M3 processor architecture, the Giant Gecko EFM32GG, Gecko and Tiny Gecko microcontrollers demonstrate an energy usage that can rival or beat any other alternative 8-, 16- or 32-bit microcontroller. With a wake-up time of just 2µs and current consumption of 180µA per MHz executing code from Flash, 900nA in deep sleep mode and 20nA in shut off mode, and a wider supply voltage range than most competitors, the Gecko microcontrollers are extending typical battery by a substantial margin.

The Giant Gecko’s embedded USB connectivity option will be USB2.0 compliant at full speed (12Mbit/s), integrating 2KB endpoint buffers and handling up to 10 endpoints. It will provide support for USB host and on-the-go configurations as well as bootloader over USB. Additional extended communication options offered by Giant Gecko will include dual I²C and up to 5 USART/UART serial interfaces.

Giant Gecko will feature the same selection of energy-saving peripherals as the companion Gecko and Tiny Gecko products. These include: an 8-channel, 12-bit ADC using 200µA at full resolution and 1Msamples/sec conversion rate, a 4x40 segment LCD controller using 900nA and a special Low Energy UART consuming just 100nA at 9600baud. In addition, for wireless encryption/decryption duties, an 128/256-bit AES accelerator block is also provided.