Compact MCU aims for next-generation sensor duties

The H8/38602F is the first of a new family of Tiny Super Low Power microcontrollers from Renesas Technology Europe.

The H8/38602F is the first of a new family of Tiny Super Low Power microcontrollers from Renesas Technology Europe.

The device uses a high performance 16bit H8/300H CPU core that offers extremely low power consumption and includes 16Kbyte of on-chip single-supply Flash memory.

The chip has been developed for the next generation of battery and line-powered intelligent sensor applications, offering low power consumption, low cost and easy memory reprogramming without any additional special circuitry, which reduces customer inventory.

Intelligent sensors are often required to communicate despite minimal power consumption, so the H8/38602F supports many methods of low power communication.

These include a USART that can communicate while using a 32kHz oscillator, and built-in IrDA capability.

A unique design of timer, along with the two onboard analogue comparators, also provide solutions for a variety of the power and data over two wire communications schemes that are commonly used.

The H8/38602F has an operating voltage of 1.8 to 3.6V.

Its fast oscillator startup time makes it ideal for applications that need to spend the majority of time asleep in the lowest power modes and then awaken to take readings or to communicate.

Water and gas meters, as well as smoke and movement detectors, are typical examples.

A high-resolution six-channel 10bit A/D convertor with a wide sampling range along with the two on-chip analogue comparators also make the device ideal for these applications.

The microcontroller features an asynchronous timer and 32kHz clock oscillator with an on-chip real time clock.

This makes it suitable for battery-powered applications that count pulses and need to keep a clock function with an average power consumption of around 500nA.

The on-chip watchdog timer with integrated oscillator also makes the device easy to use in systems where reliability is an issue.

The H8/38602F draws 1.1mA running at 2MHz, 7uA in subactive mode and 0.1uA in standby mode.

The device offers a complete peripheral set that includes: an on-chip oscillator; a powerful two channel 16bit timer; an asynchronous 16bit timer; an 8bit timer; a watchdog timer with its own on-chip oscillator; a real time clock; a high speed USART; an I2C or SPI interface; a 10bit A/D convertor; two analogue comparators; 19 I/O pins and an integrated power-on reset circuit.

It also features 512byte to 1Kbyte of SRAM.

The device is available immediately and is supported by the Renesas E7 in-circuit debugger.

It is also available with 8 to 16Kbyte of on-chip ROM.

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