Geir Førre, CEO ofEnergy Micro,
talks to Electronics Weekly about the company, which has just
launched its first semiconductor product, a very low-power ARM
Cortex-M3-based microcontroller.
See also:
Photos: Energy
Micro's EFM32 MCU
1. How would you characterise the needs of the 32-bit MCU
market?
Over the next decade, 32-bit MCUs will ultimately come to dominate
the entire microcontroller space. Increasing need for greater
efficiency, in terms of both energy consumption and silicon area,
is certain to make this happen. Modern 32-bit controller
architectures like the ARM Cortex-M3, for example, are already
fuelling the transition away from 8- and 16-bit microcontrollers.
This combined with constantly rising demand for more processing
power and memory capacity will only accelerate the take-up of
32-bit solutions.
2. What's the basis of your claim to have created the
world's most energy-friendly microcontroller?
We make the claim since our EFM32 microcontroller has the lowest
active mode energy consumption and the lowest standby energy
consumption of any microcontroller available today - that's across
8-, 16- and 32-bit devices. As a result, in any low power
application running from a 3V lithium cell, our device will extend
battery life by a clear factor of four. Until now, the ultra-low
power space has been firmly dominated by 8- and 16-bit solutions,
like the MSP430 and others. High-efficiency 32-bit devices such as
ours will certainly change this status quo.
3. How are you addressing the need for strong software
support in the MCU market?
Great software support is clearly a very important factor in
achieving success in the microcontroller space. Simplicity is a
core value and, for us, this translates into building an
infrastructure around our microcontrollers that makes it easy to
create great products around them.
Infrastructure has more than a lot to do with software, so at
the time of launching the EFM32, we made available the device
support library along with application examples and demonstration
software. Users demand that such support be significantly extended
over time and device manufacturers need to deliver.
4. Why did you choose the Cortex-M3 core?
The ARM Cortex-M3
core offers a great combination of very high performance and energy
efficiency - better, we believe, than any other microcontroller
architecture available in the market today. Just considering the
power savings alone that we've achieved with the EFM32 underlines
its unique attributes.
5. What are Energy Micro's longer term
aims?
Let's put things into some perspective here. The microcontroller
market is a $15bn-$20bn market and the industrial part alone
accounts for, say, $3bn-$5bn. Right now, we're focused on
industrial markets where long battery life and reducing maintenance
are key priorities; energy metering, building automation, alarm and
security systems and medical systems for example.
So we think we can grab a 1% share of the total microcontroller
market by 2017 - our 10th anniversary. On top of this, of course,
we would ultimately target becoming a dominant player in the
market, with a market share above 10%. Time will tell.
See also:
Q5 -
Interviews with electronics industry
leaders
Read all the Electronics Weekly Q5 interviews. From ARM's chairman,
Sir Robin Saxby, to touchscreen technology firm Zytronic's MD, Mark
Cambridge, the business leaders share their particular insights on
the UK electronics industry.