Atmel Broadens Portfolio of Lowest Power, Highest Performance 32-bit AVR UC3 Microcontroller Solutions

AVR UC3L: expands the award-winning ultra-low power 32-bit MCU, including new memory options and adding USB functionality.
AVR UC3D: a brand new product series which targets entry-level 32-bit applications and includes hardware for capacitive touch support.
AVR UC3A4: a high-performance, high-throughput UC3 device series with high-speed USB and 128kB of SRAM. The devices also offer an optional 256-bit AES encryption decryption/encryption module.

The AVR UC3L– the Ultra-Low Power 32-bit Microcontroller
The AVR UC3L is Atmel’s 32-bit MCU series with picoPower® technology. This series is ideal for portable consumer and battery-powered applications, board controllers, game pads, remote controls and human interface devices. The AVR UC3 L Series consumes down to 165 µA/MHz in active mode, down to 600 nA with RTC running, and down to 9 nA in deep-sleep mode. picoPower devices offer true 1.62V operation, allowing all analog modules, oscillators and Flash to be fully functional without compromise at 1.62V. SleepWalking™, a picoPower technology capability that allows peripherals to make intelligent decisions and wake the CPU directly, is available in all UC3L devices. This allows the data to be analyzed and qualified at a peripheral level so the CPU can stay in sleep longer, significantly reducing overall power consumption.

The UC3 L Series features the built-in capacitive touch peripheral, which supports capacitive touch buttons and sliders, and a new glue logic controller. Both can eliminate external components. To safeguard sensitive data, FlashVault™ code protection enables on-chip Flash to be partially programmed and locked, for secure on-chip storage of software intellectual property. Atmel expands the memory option of the currently available UC3L0 with 128kB and 256kB of Flash. These new devices also have 32kB of internal SRAM. The new UC3L4 devices are pin-compatible with the existing UC3L0 devices. The UC3L4 adds full-speed USB device connectivity to the UC3L series. The new UC3L4 devices come in 64kB, 128KB and 256KB on-board Flash options, and offer up to 32kB of internal SRAM.

The AVR UC3D – Entry-level 32-bit for Consumer Applications
The new AVR UC3D MCU is an entry-level 32-bit series, well suited for product designs requiring low-power capacitive touch as well as other consumer and industrial applications. The series offers designers a rich feature set of devices containing a hardware QTouch® capacitive touch interface, USB full-speed device, RTC with calendar, 10-bit ADC, USART, SPI, TWI, PWM and I2S . With SleepWalking technology integrated into the device, the UC3D MCU can be woken from sleep mode via a peripheral. In capacitive touch applications, the device can be put into sleep mode and woken by proximity touch. The capacitive touch module found on the UC3D supports up to 25 channels in hardware, and each channel can be configured as buttons, sliders and wheels. Multiple touch channels can be grouped together for better performance and greater flexibility in applications where different sensitivity levels are needed on different channels.

By bundling sensors in groups, design engineers can use different surface materials and experience an easier implementation. The glue logic controller contains programmable logic and lookup tables which can be connected to general-purpose I/O (GPIO) pins, which can reduce the amount of external components. This, in turn, can reduce system cost and board space. The UC3D is pin-compatible with the UC3 B Series. The UC3B offers higher memory densities and USB OTG, as well as a migration path for existing UC3D customers requiring more functionality and performance.

The AVR UC3A4 – When Speed Meets Security
The new AVR UC3A4 is a high-performance, high-throughput 32-bit series, well suited for high-speed applications requiring security, such as PC peripherals, e-tokens, high-speed communication gateways and audio. The devices achieve performance levels of up to 1.51 DMIPS per MHz running from Flash and offers Hi-Speed USB OTG. The AVR UC3A4 features 128KBytes of onboard SRAM, where 64KBytes of the SRAM are directly coupled to the 32-bit AVR CPU for increased performance optimization, and two blocks of 32kB SRAM on the high-speed bus. These two memory blocks are physically separate, but sequential in the address map, allowing real ping-pong buffering to increase performance. The onboard Hi-Speed USB OTG takes advantage of the SRAM configuration to ensure high performance and high throughput.

Additional features include memory-to-memory DMA controller, SD/SDIO card support and MLC NAND Flash with ECC interface. The device series also features a large number of communication interfaces such as USART, SPI and TWI as well as I2S and an audio bitstream D/A converter. Selected products support 128-, 192- and 256-bit AES encryption and decryption in hardware. The AES hardware encryption module is connected to the DMA controller and achieves a throughput of over 22 MB/s.
“With this expansion of the AVR UC3 product portfolio, targeting multiple market areas, Atmel enforces its position as a world-class 32-bit microcontroller provider. The new devices take advantage of multiple innovative technologies such as picoPower, SleepWalking and peripheral event system”, said Ingar Fredriksen, Senior Product Marketing Director for AVR, Atmel. “As we continue to enable the growth trend in battery-operated applications and capacitive touch, these new UC3L devices offer a superior ultra-low power platform that truly enables unlimited possibilities for our customers.”