Keywords: M2M, chips

About the Internet of things is the present market. According to the prediction that by 2020 around the world will be more than 100 billion devices connected to the Internet. Noteworthy is that more than half of these devices will be sensitive to power consumption problem. As a result, it has low power consumption, high performance, especially the MCU integrates the function of wireless communication solutions will be taken seriously. In simplified design, it can let more downstream designers will networking equipment to the market.

Internet of things on the average power consumption

Connect with the people and things, things and things, the future will be connecting billions of times, together with the international standards organization in promoting technical standards work, low power consumption M2M business market prospect is very broad. , Silicon Labs 32-bit microcontrollers senior product marketing manager Oivind Loe for said in an interview: "energy efficiency is one of components in the Internet of things a vital feature. Some Internet applications, such as smart meters and smart card, there may even be ultra low power requirements, in order to fit a variety of applications, energy pattern must be carefully designed by MCU, support the MCU to achieve balance between current consumption and the response time and function."

Microchip company home appliance solutions department IoT marketing manager Xavier Bignalet also pointed out: "today, it is necessary to connect application low consumption conditions, even in some applications, the battery life sustainable more than 20 years."

But it is worth noting that the Internet of things application of low power demand for chips was not all is lower, the better, the different scenarios and have unique needs. Renesas electronic universal solutions center integrated marketing, vice minister of the king are peak said in an interview: "if specific to the Internet of things application, it is often difficult to make a clear distinction between standby power consumption and power consumption operation. Because in the Internet of things equipment, equipment in most case, it is in standby and working between, or high frequency transformation between the two, so the average power consumption becomes important."

Aimed at this situation, many semiconductor companies in low power consumption MCU chip for iot development invested great efforts. "Renesas 16-bit L78 series and 32-bit Rx series and so on all have low power consumption characteristics. Renesas many product USES its own kernel, at the time of optimizing power consumption have larger space. In addition, renesas has its own chip peripherals products, and have their own production factory, in the kernel, peripherals and process three aspects work together, can achieve low power consumption of product." Wang feng said.

Oivind Loe for also said: "the MCU design mode of energy, to achieve the balance between current consumption and the response time and the function. The optimization method of weighing the MCU to provide current consumption for many applications, the right combination of performance, size and cost."

The consumption way improving design architecture is important

Specific view, MCU power consumption level consists of a static power consumption, operation power consumption. Considering the actual application, the static power consumption chip is in sleep or the operation condition of power consumption, and the dynamic power consumption of the MCU power consumed by a runtime. Finally the system power consumption performance is calculating the average power consumption. Their consumption level has had a lot to do with manufacturing process, what process, determine the static power consumption and operating power consumption products.

In addition, some manufacturers have to improve from the whole structure, the realization of the Internet of things under the environment of low power consumption. Grace wisdom pu semiconductor MICR micro controller product marketing director for greater China Jin Yujie said: "boon wisdom of pu in the MCU is introduced into unique asynchronous structure, respectively in a MCU integrated ARM Cortex A7 and architecture (M4 kernel, you can use the M4 kernel is to maintain the normal operation, especially in the standby mode of operation, to keep a lower power consumption."

Renesas take another way and better solve the problem. "In view of the demand characteristic, renesas MCU introduced in Snooze mode, can do MCU kernel standby, peripherals. Using Snooze mode, the peripheral arrival instructions will judge the world and the need to the kernel work, only after we confirm this requirement will truly awaken the kernel, which make the system work efficiency is improved." Wang feng said.

Reduce the peripherals, power consumption is also a effective way to reduce the power consumption of the whole chip. According to the introduction of Jin Yujie, grace wisdom pu products can be through the API software, complete the task in the MCU, MPU, turn off some without interface, saving power consumption.

Microchip is mining potential in terms of peripherals. "Part of the Microchip 8-bit microcontroller is independent of the kernel peripherals, can well realize low power requirements, only need little or no CPU intervention, further reducing the power consumption demand. In addition, such as LCD, op-amp, RTCC, touch sensing, USB, DMA and encryption engine peripherals such as low power consumption MCU performance improvement to a new level, reduce the power consumption of the system level as much as possible." Xavier Bignalet said.

Meet the challenges of the fragmentation

The most obvious feature of the Internet of things is fragmented, how to adapt MCU chip to the application of Internet of things, is also a challenge. "Internet of things is not just a single market, but contains all vertical market area. Therefore, for the Internet of things device does not have a general specification: wearable equipment has strict requirements on power consumption, and heavy industry equipment is not demanding low power consumption. But the present situation is that most chip makers to balance the general MCU is used to try to cover most of the application." Xavier Bignalet pointed out.

But that situation is improved. "Along with the evolution of semiconductor technology and the development of the Internet of things application market, perhaps in the future there will be a vendor for iot market developed a dedicated chip, that is commonly used in existing MCU analog peripherals, and other functions may be removed, to concentrate on algorithms and connection, under the more advanced semiconductor technology realization of lower power consumption and cost. In simple terms, is to control as the main function of MCU and intelligent analysis/connection as the main function of the Internet of things chip may break up, but co-exist at the same time." The ARM embedded application of China marketing manager GengLiFeng said.