Texas Instruments claims it has truly diminished the dimension of the tiniest microcontroller system in its sector with a brand-newMCU the size of a black pepper flake
The MCU product packaging is simply 1.38 sq. millimeters in dimension and belongs to the agency’s Arm Cortex line of ingrained layouts. TI claims the merchandise is targeted on little gadgets consisting of medical wearables, earbuds, stylus pen pens and electrical tooth brushes. The merchandise consists of a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter and has 16KB of flash reminiscence and 1KB of SRAM and goes for 24MHz.
The petite instrument is known as the MSPM0C1104. Alas, that’s as catchy because it obtains (no Pepper Power for this merchandise of expertise).
TI claims the microcontroller units you again 20 cents every in quantities of 1,000, which means a agency can get hold of a navy of robotic crawlers job started for as little as $200. TI is displaying this and numerous different MCUs (not Marvel- related) at Embedded World 2025 in Nuremberg,Germany
Opens up probabilities
William Luk, a specialist and innovation skilled at Quandary Peak Research, acknowledged the MCU contraction opens probabilities in places the place mini devices weren’t previously possible.
“One of the important verticals for micro-devices is in healthcare and surgical: smart pills, embedded sensors, or even surgical devices that can reach places like never before,” Luk acknowledged.
Luk likewise acknowledged the expertise would possibly suffice to relocate Texas Instruments up the chain of MCU programmers presently managed by STMicroelectronics, Infineon, NXP, Microchip and Renesas Electronics.
“With the new TI MCU, we could see a new class of super micro-devices not just targeting consumers but commercial uses (such as healthcare). But there are also challenges such as government approval (for medical devices). Manufacturing of these new micro devices could also be challenging,” Luk acknowledged.
Correction, March 14: An earlier variation of this story improperly detailed the worth of the microcontroller. It costs 20 cents every.
