OREANDA-NEWS. October 27, 2015. Seiko Epson Corporation (TSE: 6724, "Epson") has developed and recently begun shipping samples of the S1C31W74, Epson's first product in a new series of energy-efficient microcontrollers (MCUs) with integrated 32-bit Flash memory. Epson plans to produce 200,000 units per month when volume production beings in July 2016.

Epson's original 16-bit Flash microcontrollers have proved to be a popular choice for embedding in mobile devices owing to their exceptionally low power consumption. The recent proliferation of wearable products has made balancing the need for performance with the need for power-friendliness an important issue.

To provide exceptional performance while extending battery life, Epson has created the new S1C31 family of MCUs. These are Epson's first MCUs to be based on the ARM® Cortex®-M0+ processor, and the S1C31W74 is the first product in the family. The combination of the very successful ARM® Cortex®-M0+ processor, the most energy efficient processor from U.K.-based ARM Ltd., and Epson's ultra-low leak process and circuit technology helps to enable powerful MCUs with modest power requirements, thus extending battery life.

The S1C31W74, which consumes only 900 nA in RTC mode and 150 µA/MHz in RUN mode, can operate up to two times longer on battery power than an Epson original core 32-bit Flash MCU*. This level of energy efficiency will move the world one step closer to realizing smart watches that do not require recharging and Internet of Things (IoT) terminals for environmental monitoring applications, where power consumption is a critical factor.
The S1C31W74 is a single chip housed in a 1-mm thick VFBGA8HX-181 package. The integrated circuit includes an LCD driver that can directly display up to 2,304 dots, a USB 2.0 full-speed device controller, 512 Kbytes of Flash memory, and 128 Kbytes of RAM. Epson also plans to offer the S1C31W74 as a bare chip. The feature-packed S1C31W74 will also help users reduce their bills of materials and save board space.
Epson will also provide an optional evaluation kit including an evaluation board, debug probe and IDE. The IDE is based on IAR Embedded Workbench® for ARM® provided by IAR Systems (Uppsala, Sweden).

Epson is committed to helping its customers improve the performance of their products with solutions that leverage Epson's core compact, energy saving and high-precision technologies.

* Compared to an S1C33L27 32-bit Flash microcontroller processing the same task