Semiconductor Products Insight

Semiconductor Products Insight

late bloom

02

Dec

2019

New wireless devices bloomed late this year with both Dialog and Nordic semis releasing BT5.1 compatible devices either on the lower end (DA14531) or with all the bells and whistles (nRF52833 with direction finding). Interestingly, NXP “followed” the lead of Microchip this month with additional parts in the ARM9-based i.MX28 family. Back to the future?


Dialog
Dialog just released the SmartBond Tiny (DA14531) with BT5.1 support, based on a 16 MHz Cortex-M0+ core. It only requires 6 external passives a crystal and a power source (1.1 to 3.3V). It is available in WLCSP17 or FCGQFN24.
Infineon
No change.
Microchip
Microchip added 149 variant of existing parts. The ATSAML1x (20+ of them) got extended temperature (-40 to +125), 32 dsPIC33CH got -H revisions, while the ATSAMDA1E added 14 variants with new Flash sizes. Finally, a number of VAO (Automotive grade) parts made it out in the following families: PIC12, PIC16 PIC32, ATTiny16 and ATTiny 8.
Nordic
It had been a while since Nordic released a new product, and this time the nRF52833 is a general-purpose multiprotocol SoC with a Bluetooth 5.1 Direction Finding capable radio, qualified for -40°C to 105°C. It is the 5th addition to the nRF52 Series and is built around a 64 MHz Arm Cortex-M4 with FPU, and has 512kB flash and 128kB RAM. A 1:4 RAM to Flash ratio and +8 dBm output power make the nRF52833 suitable for advanced wearables or smart home applications where robust coverage is important.

It includes a range of analog and digital interfaces such as NFC-A, ADC, Full-speed 12 Mbps USB 2.0, High-speed 32 MHz SPI, UART/SPI/TWI, PWM, I2S and PDM, and has a 1.7 V to 5.5 V supply voltage range, which enables powering the device from rechargeable batteries or over USB. The two-stage LDO regulator and a DC-DC converter, together with the automated power management system help deliver low power numbers even in more advanced applications.

Nuvoton
No change.
NXP
NXP added more low-end parts to the K32 L2 MCU family. It is based on a low-leakage Cortex-M0+ core with options scaling from 64 KB to 512 KB Flash and from 32 kB to 128 kB SRAM. The new devices (K32L2B11 and K32L2B21) extend the portfolio toward the low-end with 64 and 128 kB of Flash. Of interest is the release of additional ARM9 based i.MX28.
What’s up with the ARM9 renewed interest?
Renesas
Renesas added 77 new variants of the RX71M and the RX64M, with a few new RX24T part numbers.
Renesas also unveiled the RL78/G13A a replacement for the G13, with much lower operating current (47μA/MHz: over 40% reduction from RL78/G13). They also support extended temperature range (105C). The 16 new parts are still under development.
SiliconLabs
No change this month.
Spansion/Cypress soon Infineon
Cypress added a BGA package to the PSoC6 (CY8C63xxBZI).
ST Microelectronics
ST disclosed a few variants of existing parts, the bulk of it with an UFQFPN package and 85C max temperature.
Texas Instruments
No significant change.
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