New picoPower AVR Microcontrollers with LCD Controllers

On Dec 2006, Atmel release four new picoPower AVR microcontrollers, Atmel ATmega329P, ATmega3250P, ATmega329P and ATmega3290P, which are upgrade version of  ATmega325, ATmega329, ATmega3250, ATmega3290 microcontrollers respectively.

picoPower microcontrollers consume only:

• 340 uA in active mode,
• 650 nA in power-save mode with active RTC,
• 100 nA in power-down mode

These picoPower devices integrate complete low-power LCD controller with features:

• internal contrast control,
• flexible selection of drive time and frame frequency
• internal power supply for the LCD voltage,
• ability to operate in power-save mode

The internal LCD power supply only requires one external capacitor, an it can drive a 3.3V LCD display from a battery voltage of 1.8V or higher.

Ingar Fredriksen, Director of Product Marketing AVR:

Development and debugging is easier and the PCB area is reduced and simplified. For typical LCD applications the picoPower technology with on-chip LCD controller can add years to the battery life…

The new picoPower AVR microcontrollers, ATmega325P and ATmega3250P are compatible to the ATmega329P and ATmega3290P, without the on-chip LCD controller. They are suitable for applications which require many general purpose I/O, high connectivity and ultra-low power consumption.

These new picoPower AVR microcontrollers have features:

• Up to 16 MIPS throughput.
• 32 Kbytes of Flash memory
• 2 Kbytes of SRAM
• 1 Kbyte of EEPROM
• 10-bit ADC
• 3 Timer/Counters
• Serial connectivity: USART, SPI, I2C compatible,
• Full operation from 1.8 to 5.5 volts

The ATmega329P picoPower AVR can support up to 100 LCD segments and the ATmega3290P supports up to 160 LCD segments.

• Atmel’s picoPower technology utilizes a variety of  techniques including:
• ultra-low-power 32 kHz crystal oscillator,
• automatic disable and re-enabling of brown-out detection circuitry during sleep modes,
• a power reduction register that completely powers down individual peripherals,
• digital input disable registers that reduces the leakage current on digital inputs.

Source: Atmel