Texas Devices says it has shrunk the dimensions of the smallest microcontroller unit in its trade with a brand new MCU the dimensions of a black pepper flake.
The MCU packaging is just one.38 sq. millimeters in dimension and is a part of the corporate’s Arm Cortex line of embedded designs. TI says the product is geared toward small merchandise together with medical wearables, earbuds, stylus pens and electrical toothbrushes. The product features a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter and has 16KB of flash reminiscence and 1KB of SRAM and runs at 24MHz.
The diminutive system is named the MSPM0C1104. Alas, that is as catchy because it will get (no PepperPower for this piece of tech).
TI says the microcontroller prices 20 cents per unit in portions of 1,000, which implies an organization might get a military of robotic spiders mission began for as little as $200. TI is exhibiting off this and different MCUs (not Marvel-related) at Embedded World 2025 in Nuremberg, Germany.
Opens up alternatives
William Luk, a advisor and know-how skilled at Quandary Peak Analysis, mentioned the MCU shrinkage opens up alternatives in areas the place miniature gadgets weren’t beforehand attainable.
“One of many necessary verticals for micro-devices is in healthcare and surgical: good capsules, embedded sensors, and even surgical gadgets that may attain locations like by no means earlier than,” Luk mentioned.
Luk additionally mentioned the innovation could also be sufficient to maneuver Texas Devices up the chain of MCU builders at the moment dominated by STMicroelectronics, Infineon, NXP, Microchip and Renesas Electronics.
“With the brand new TI MCU, we might see a brand new class of tremendous micro-devices not simply concentrating on customers however industrial makes use of (similar to healthcare). However there are additionally challenges similar to authorities approval (for medical gadgets). Manufacturing of those new micro gadgets may be difficult,” Luk mentioned.
Correction: An earlier model of this story incorrectly listed the price of the microcontroller. It prices 20 cents per unit.