June 26, 2014 – Silicon Labs (Country Manager In-gyu Kim), a global leader in high-performance analog-intensive mixed-signal ICs, announced the launch of the industry's most energy-efficient capacitive sensing microcontroller (MCU) suitable for Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI). The new C8051F97x MCU family integrates Silicon Labs' proven low-power technology with the industry's fastest and most precise capacitive sensing performance to provide industry-leading touch control solutions suitable for the Internet of Things (IoT), home/building automation, consumer, and industrial markets. The F97x MCU is designed for battery-powered capacitive touch sensing applications, suitable for portable industrial devices, toys, gaming devices, and remote controls, as well as for white goods such as dishwashers, dryers, ovens, and dishwashers, serving as a touch panel switch alternative.

Silicon Labs' F97x MCU products achieve the industry's lowest energy consumption in active, standby, and deep-sleep modes, enabling the longest battery life among 8-bit capacitive sensing MCUs. With an active current of 200 µA/MHz, the F97x MCUs provide an ideal combination of low energy consumption and superior system performance. The MCU's fast 2-microsecond wake time transitions from sleep mode to active mode while minimizing energy consumption. F97x MCU products provide the lowest sleep mode energy consumption in their class, with 55 nA standby current with the brownout detector enabled and 280 nA standby current with the 16.4 kHz internal oscillator operating.

The F97x MCU family delivers industry-leading capacitive sensing technology with capacitive proximity sensing capabilities featuring sub-microamp (less than 1 µA) wake-on-touch average current, 16-bit resolution, an excellent 100:1 dynamic range supporting buttons, sliders, and wheels, and up to 43 channels with multiple scanning modes. The F97x MCU products integrate Silicon Labs' SAR charge-time capacitance-to-digital converter (CDC) technology. The 40-microsecond acquisition time of the high-resolution CDC enables the industry's fastest capacitive touch sense performance without compromising sensitivity.

Silicon Labs' CDC technology provides excellent noise immunity to ensure high-performance reliability under demanding conditions or configuration environments, such as thick laminate overlays, electrical noise, or printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing variations. Through state-of-the-art CDC hardware implementations, capacitance can be measured on a wide range of materials, including indium tin oxide (ITO) on PCBs, flex substrates, glass, and films.

The F97x MCU family is an extension of Silicon Labs' entry-level C8051F99x low-power capacitive sensing MCUs, offering up to 43 capacitive sensing inputs, 32kB flash memory, 8kB RAM, 7 DMA channels, and 16 x 16 MAC (multiply-accumulate) units in a small 4 mm x 4 mm QFN package. F97x MCU products integrate a 25 MHz pipelined 8051-compatible core, a precision oscillator, a 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a temperature sensor, a voltage reference, and four 16-bit general-purpose timer counters.

John Calagaz, CTO of Centralite, said, “Our lighting control system requires fast and accurate capacitive touch control and complex system management, all of which are met within a very limited power budget. Silicon Labs’ F97x MCU provided the most energy-efficient solution without compromising performance or offsetting features.” He added, “Silicon Labs’ Simplicity Studio development platform enabled us to aim for time-to-market and provided everything we needed to optimize our design for performance and energy efficiency.”

The F97x MCU family is supported by the Simplicity Studio development platform, enabling developers to rapidly demonstrate and develop capacitive touch interfaces. This free software platform includes a fully integrated Eclipse-based IDE, the Keil compiler (supporting an environment with unlimited code capacity), demo tools, application examples, libraries, and all documentation in a single, easy-to-use tool. A built-in capacitive sense profiler tool greatly simplifies the fine-tuning process for buttons, sliders, wheels, touchpads, and proximity sensors. A full-featured capacitive sense firmware library makes development faster and more efficient while ensuring robust and verified operation.

Daniel Cooley, Vice President and General Manager of Microcontrollers and Wireless Products at Silicon Labs, said, “Today, numerous battery-powered connected devices for IoT require high-performance and energy-friendly touchscreen user interfaces. “We are well aware of the requirements for these applications and are providing industry-leading capacitive touch sense solutions targeting the IoT market,” he said. “Combining industry-leading energy efficiency and outstanding performance, the F97x family is the most advanced capacitive sensing 8-bit MCU solution on the market and is supported by the industry-leading Simplicity Studio ecosystem.”