Tom Hackenberg, Principal Analyst for MCUs at IHS Technology, stated, “Leading MCU vendors are accelerating improvements in the power efficiency and integration of 8-bit solutions to ensure continued growth in the 8-bit MCU market.” According to IHS, the 8-bit market is expected to approach $7 billion in 2015 and grow to $7.8 billion by 2018, accounting for more than one-third of the annual revenue of the MCU market. Enabling this sustained growth is market demand seeking to meet all the requirements of IoT devices, such as MCU prices under $0.50, small size, ultra-low power consumption, minimal software overhead, and simplified design. Silicon Labs designed the new EFM8 family to provide the best characteristics and capabilities in each of these application areas.

The EFM8 MCU family meets the needs of IoT developers with a combination of best features and performance, including a high-speed pipelined 8051 core, ultra-low power characteristics, precision analog, enhanced communication peripherals, an integrated oscillator, a small footprint package, and an advanced crossbar architecture that simplifies PCB design and I/O pin routing with flexible digital and analog multiplexing.

The new EFM8 Bee family consists of three MCU lines designed to meet specific developer needs and applications. (The family name 'Bee' is intended to highlight the scalable performance, energy efficiency, and high productivity of the EFM8 platform.)

EFM8 Busy Bee: The EFM8BB Busy Bee MCU is designed to achieve an optimal balance of excellent performance, power efficiency, and value for cost-sensitive applications. Supporting a core speed configurable up to 50 MHz and 2 to 16 kB of flash memory, this MCU incorporates a series of high-performance peripherals, including a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC). This MCU is ideal for motor control applications (toys, fans, tools), power supplies, battery chargers, sensor controllers, consumer electronics, and communication bridges.

EFM8 Sleepy Bee: The EFM8SB Sleepy Bee MCU is Silicon Labs' most energy-efficient 8-bit device, providing industry-leading sleep mode power (50nA with full memory retention and brownout detection enabled) and an ultra-fast wake-up time of 2μs. The core speed is set up to 25MHz, and the flash memory size varies from 2 to 64kB. This MCU incorporates a high-end capacitive sensing controller that provides ultra-low power wake-on-touch capabilities of less than 1μA, eliminating the need for on/off switches in some products. This energy-efficient MCU is ideal for touch-based, battery-powered IoT and industrial applications requiring longer battery life and energy-efficient human interfaces.

EFM8 Universal Bee: The EFM8UB Universal Bee MCU is the industry's most powerful 8-bit USB connectivity solution, offering core speeds of up to 48 MHz and 8 to 64 kB of flash memory. This MCU integrates a high-precision built-in oscillator, clock recovery circuitry, and an integrated full-speed USB transceiver. The low-power USB MCU version reduces USB power consumption by up to 90%. An on-chip battery charge detection module is integrated, thereby reducing the number of bill-of-materials (BOM) items and system costs. The MCU's excellent peripheral integration and small package characteristics significantly reduce the cost and complexity of adding USB connectivity to personal medical devices, wearables, communication bridges, toys, remote controls, thermostats, and more.

Daniel Cooley, Vice President and General Manager of MCU and Wireless Products at Silicon Labs, said, “The EFM8 family realizes the future of Silicon Labs’ 8-bit MCU solutions for IoT, offering an ideal combination of value, performance, energy efficiency, peripheral integration, and flexibility.” He said, “Our MCU customers can perform amazing tasks in 8-bit applications with very low power and cost budgets and ultra-small footprints by leveraging Silicon Labs’ proven, pipelined 8051 cores, unrivaled mixed-signal integration, and superior peripheral density. Developers also recognize the value of being able to complete their own 8-bit designs so easily and quickly using the Simplicity Studio development environment.”

Simplification of 8-bit design

Silicon Labs provides a vast software and hardware toolkit that offers an optimal, developer-friendly out-of-the-box experience to fully support the EFM8 MCU family. Silicon Labs’ enhanced Simplicity Studio development platform provides an integrated 8/32-bit wireless development environment that enables simpler and faster processing of 8-bit designs. Using this platform, users can access the Eclipse debugger and plugins, Keil PK51 build tools, third-party tool support, a capacitive sensing profiler, demos, software examples, datasheets, application notes, technical support, and community forums with just a single click. EFM8 customers can download Simplicity Studio for free at www.silabs.com/simplicity-studio.

Price and supply

Samples and production products of Silicon Labs' EFM8 MCU are currently available in QFN, QSOP, SOIC, and QFP packages with various footprints. Pricing for the EFM8 MCU is based on a quantity of 10,000 units, starting at $0.21 for the EFM8BB MCU, $0.32 for the EFM8SB MCU, and $0.43 for the EFM8UB MCU. The EFM8BB Busy Bee, EFM8SB Sleepy Bee, and EFM8UB Universal Bee starter kits are $29 each. Further information on the new EFM8 product family and orders for MCU product samples and development kits can be found at www.silabs.com/EFM8.