CES Introduction from ATMEL

Hello and Happy New Year!  I want to post a new low power, small form factor microcontroller from ATMEL.  For all the wearable designs going on at CES I thought this should be a processor of consideration for these types of applications:

Atmel launched a brand new family of microcontrollers, the SAM G, at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) last week. The SAM G family targets ultra-low-power, small form factor and high-performance applications. With a Cortex-M4 CPU with FPU bundled with the low power consumption, these devices offers unrivaled efficiency in a very small package, just 3 x 3 mm WLCSP with 49 balls. With an optimized and highly-efficient set of serial peripherals, 12-bit ADC, digital audio, DMA and a good SRAM-to-flash ratio. The SAM G devices targets a broad range of low-power, space-constrained applications especially consumer sensor hubs.

Family overview

	SAM G51	SAM G53
Frequency	48MHz	48MHz
Flash	256KB	512KB
SRAM	64KB	96KB
USART/UART	1 + 2	2 + 2
I2C Master	2 @ 400kbps	2 @ 400kbps
I2C Slave	1 @ 3.4Mbps	1 @ 3.4Mbps
SPI	1	1
Timer / Counter	3 x 16-bit	6 x 16-bit
12-bit ADC	8	8
I2S / PDM	-	2
PLL	1	1
picoPowerTM	Yes	Yes
SleepWalking	Yes	Yes
GPIO	38	38
WLCSP size	2.84 x 2.84	3.07 x 3.07

The SAM G family comes in two series, the SAM G51 and SAM G53. These devices are fully compatible, even down to the WLCSP package.

The SAM G family is all about low power. There are 3 main areas that the SAM G is optimized for: active, deep sleep with SRAM retention, and wake-up time. For most battery-powered applications these three figures are what affect the system power consumption. The G family features:

·         Down to 100 µA/MHz in active

·                                                                                                                                                                                                      Below 7 µA in deep sleep with SRAM retention

·         Down to 3 µs wake-up from

deep sleep to executing the

first instruction in active mode

Both the G51 and G53 embed a Cortex-M4 CPU with an FPU (floating point unit). This ensures maximum throughput. This is very important as it allows you to minimize the active power consumption and get to sleep faster in order to reduce the overall power consumption. Additionally, the devices have 16 DMA channels, which give extremely high throughput. The combination of ultra-low power consumption, fast wake-up time and high throughput is what gives the SAM G the edge in space- and power-constrained consumer applications such as sensor hubs. It wakes up quickly, has the throughput needed to reduce the amount of time spent in active mode, and then goes back to sleep with SRAM retention to conserve energy. This gives the best performance and longest battery lifetime. The SAM G family of devices is fully-functional all the way down to 1.62V, including flash reads and writes, as well as full ADC operation. This allows for a more flexible power supply scheme that will squeeze extra runtime out of a battery.

 Sensor Hubs

In today’s connected world, sensors are all around us. Engineers continue to design them into an increasing number of everyday products. Requirements have changed from simple monitoring to comprehensive interpretations of a device’s status. This can require simultaneous analysis and fusion of data from different sensors and sensor types. Hubs take data from accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers, as well as environment sensors like light level, color, temperature, pressure, and humidity. To simplify the task, Atmel has partnered with leading sensor manufacturers and sensor fusion specialists to provide a complete, easy-to-implement Sensor Hub ecosystem. The SAM G family of devices is especially designed for these types of applications. Take a look at atmel.com/SensorHubs for more information.

Tools

The SAM G53 Xplained Pro is the recommended evaluation kit for both the SAM G51 and the SAM G53. The kit features a SAMG53N19A-AU and provides you with everything you need to start designing new microcontroller-based applications in minutes.

·         Easy to connect — Through an embedded debugger, Xplained Pro boards connect just with a USB cable to a PC for programming and development.

·         Easy to develop — The boards are automatically recognized by the Atmel Studio 6 integrated development platform (IDP), so you get direct access to example projects and documentation.

·         Easy to extend — Hardware extension boards provide easy access to all functionality of the MCU. The Atmel Software Framework provides a large set of software drivers and components.

The SAM G family of devices and SAM G53 Xplained Pro are fully supported by the Atmel Software Framework and Atmel Studio as well as 3rd parties such as IAR and Keil.

Device Availability

The SAM G is in mass production and available for orders today. The devices are sampling as a regular device directly from the Atmel Sample Center.

CPN	Package type
SAMG51G18A-UUT	49-ball WLCSP
SAMG51N18A-AU	100-pin TQFP
SAMG53G19A-UUT	49-ball WLCSP
SAMG53N19A-AU	100-pin TQFP

Please let me know if you need more information