NEC is claiming record-breaking efficiency for its latest 16-bit microcontroller.

“There is also no sacrifice in performance, offering 0.65DMips/MHz [Dhrystone 1.1] which, according to our measurements, more than doubles the equivalent performance of the latest other similarly positioned products on the market,” said NEC Electronics. “These combine to offer the industry’s leading power/performance ratio at 1.5mW/Mips.”

It also equates to 0.52mA/Mips, at up to 20MHz.

The low power theme in the 78K0R/Kx3-L, as the chip family has been named, is continued with a 1.0µA real-time clock.

On-chip oscillators offer 20MHz +/-1%, as well as 8MHz and 1MHz clocks without external components.

With an eye on sensing applications, the firm has developed analogue peripherals “including A/D converters that work across the entire 1.8 to 5.5V supply voltage range, plus on-chip x1 to x12 programmable operational amplifier and two comparator channels”, it said.

Digital peripherals include a 16bit timer and serial interface plus DMA controller and windowed watchdog timer.
Variants offer embedded flash from 16 to 512kbyte, with flash programming down to 1.8V.

Samples are available now, with mass production of the 22 device family later this year.