Texas Instruments has announced a massive roadmap expansion of their MSP430 ultra-low power microcontroller (MCU) family, with over 50 new devices to be added in the next 18 months.  TI’s Ultra-low power MSP430 portfolio expansion specifically targets the ultra-low power embedded systems marketplace, which Mirocontroller.com predicts will be the fastest-growing segment of the embedded systems marketplace.
 
The new roadmap introduces the MSP430F20xx MCU series – which offers a tiny 14-pin, 4x4mm footprint and 16 million instructions per second (MIPS) starting at $0.49 (100ku) for the MSP430F2001 MCU.

Industry's Lowest Power 16-bit Flash Microcontroller
"Our customers challenged us to provide a tight-fit MSP430 MCU solution for cost sensitive consumer and security systems applications without sacrificing ultra-low power, performance and ease of use," said Mark Buccini, TI’s advanced embedded controls director of marketing.  “We made no compromises.

The 4x4mm device with a 14-pin footprint combined with a sub-1µA standby current targets space constrained applications such as fire and motion detectors, glucose metering devices, portable medical devices, and water meters.

The memory addressing for the new devices is extended from 16-bit to 20-bit. The extra memory addressing is handled by using 4 unused bits in the old memory addressing in these new devices - so, there are no code changes and no code size increase while maintaining binary compatibility.

New MSP430 Microcontroller Roadmap

The new MSP430F20xx MCUs include:

• 16-bit 16MIP RISC CPU in 0.35µ technology
• 100% code compatible with existing MSP430 CPUs
• 20-bit addressing (no paging!)
• In-system programmable flash
• 128B of RAM
• Internal 16MHz clock with clock failure detection of external clock
• Vcc 1.8V to 3.6V
• Up to 105°C operation
• Run current of only 200 µA/MIPS
• Less than 1µA standby current
• 10 GPIO pins with programmable pull-up/pull-down resistors
• Zero-power Brown-Out Reset (BOR)
• Watchdog timer
• 16-bit Sigma-Delta A/D with internal temperature sensor and 20ppm 1.2V reference (MSP430F20x3 series)
• 10-bit SAR A/D with ±1 LSB, 200ksps+ (MSP430F20x2 series)
• Direct Transfer Controller (DTC) for DMA-like peripheral transfers
• External interrupt pins each have their own assigned interrupt vector
• Universal serial interface (USI) that can be configured for either I2C or SPI master or slave communication
• Spy Bi-Wire non-muxed debug interface
• Pin leakage less than 50na
• Useful wakeup time from sleep < 1 µsex

Continuing MSP430 Portfolio Expansion includes Zigbee

MSP430F20xx Block Diagram

In Q4 2005 TI will introduce the new MSP43FG46xx family with a 1MB memory and extended instructions. The first device, the MSP430FG4619, will have 120kB of embedded flash and a complete signal chain on chip (SCoC), targeting applications that require the high integration and large memory such as portable medical devices.

In early 2006, 5V 125°C @ 25 MIP devices targeting automotive and industrial applications will be introduced.

Also planned for 2006 are devices supporting the new 802.15.4/Zigbee standard. The solution will be a single-chip solution with an RF front end.

The new MSP430 microcontrollers will be showcased November and December at the MSP430 Advanced Technical Conference (ATC), a 2 ½ day event for all MSP430 MCU developers.  The ATC is held in  in Dallas, Texas, Munich, Germany, Taiwan as well as China.

Pricing and Availability
MSP430F20x3 MCUs are sampling now with full production scheduled Q4 2005. MSP430F20x1 and MSP430F20x2 MCUs will sample Q4 2005 with production early 2006.