On the 21st, TI held a press conference at its Samseong-dong office to announce the $0.25 value line, which is the lowest priced of the MSP430.

The MSP430, which utilizes TI's proprietary core, is an ultra-low-power MCU widely used in various portable devices and IoT devices. Managing Director Yongsik Jeong, who led the presentation, explained, "Unlike conventional general-purpose MCUs, the MSP430 uses an internal clock, allowing for user-centric programmability rather than fixed programming." He explained that users can implement devices in their desired manner through 25 libraries provided by TI, such as for LED blinking or time adjustment for alarms.



Additionally, the previously paid CCS (Code Composer Studion) IDE is now available as a free cloud-based IDE that can be used anytime, anywhere. This allows users to directly use libraries provided by TI online and receive troubleshooting tips and technical support.

Here, the MSP430 uses a common core architecture provided by TI through the free CCS IDE service, enabling software ecosystem configuration and quick and easy migration of existing design programs and structures when upgrading or downgrading the device.

The MSP430 Value Line, which includes the recently announced low-cost MSP430FR2000 series, consists of eight models, each with different memory capacities, ADC channel counts, and I/O counts. The MSP430FR2000 and MSP430FR2100 are low-cost lines starting at $0.25 and offer 0.5KB and 1KB of memory, respectively, and 8-channel and 10-channel ADCs.

While the chip does feature 8-channel and 10-channel ADCs, the library available appears to be limited by memory capacity. According to experts in the embedded development industry, the type of MCU used may vary depending on how efficiently the firmware programming is structured.

TI stated that there were 8.4 billion IoT devices connected in 2017 and that there will be 20.4 billion IoT devices connected in 2020, and that it is very important to focus the market on end nodes and sensor nodes, which will require the most devices.

In addition, by applying FRAM implemented with TI's technology, it provides read/write up to 10^15 times and provides 25 library features that can be used immediately. UART, SPI, and Single Wire Communication Host IO are provided for program porting.



The newly released MSP430FR2000 is priced at $0.29 per unit and $0.25 for 1,000 units, making it the lowest-priced single MCU currently available domestically or internationally.