All three Silicon Labs EFM8 microcontroller families are based on the ubiquitous 8051 8-bit core. This product portfolio contains a wide range of equipment choices and is ideal for highly concentrated, energy-saving and space-saving applications. The company said it also offers a low-cost development kit for all devices.
The EFM8 Sleepy Bee device is very energy efficient, runs at a core speed of up to 25MHz, and provides multiple power management modes. The sleep current of 50nA is the lowest among all microcontrollers, while the active current of 150µA / MHz ensures frugal performance in any battery-powered application. On the other hand, peripheral devices have the following functions: 14 capacitive sensing channels, 12-bit ADC, precision oscillator, low current comparator and reference voltage. There are also four 16-bit timers, a UART, and supports I2C, SMBus and SPI.
These devices are a very economical option. There are two series, which can choose the maximum CPU speed of 25MHz or 50MHz, and these devices provide a variety of peripherals, including two analog comparators, 12/10 bit SAR ADC, four 16-bit timers, and I2C, SMBus And SPI.
For applications that require a USB connection, the EFM8 Universal Bee microcontroller adds a crystalless full-speed / low-speed USB2.0 controller with 1KB of buffer memory and clock recovery. There are also two UARTs and up to two I2C / SMBus ports. General Bee devices are available in two series, with a maximum of 16KB or 64KB of on-chip flash memory.
All EFM8 microcontrollers have priority crossbar encoders, which can eliminate small packages by managing pin assignments, thereby eliminating conflicts. The package size of busy Bee and Sleepy Bee microcontrollers is as small as 3mm x 3mm QFN20, as well as 24-pin QSOP or 16-pin SOIC (Busy Bee 2) that can be soldered by hand. According to the company, Universal Bee devices come in packages ranging from 3mm x 3mm QFN20 to hand-soldered 32-pin LQFP or 48-pin TQFP (Universal Bee 2).
