STMicroelectronics has completed its ST7 UltraLite family of 8-pin microcontrollers - intended for simple and very cost-effective applications - with the addition of the new ST7FLITEU0 series, which adds more memory and system features to the peripheral set of the existing devices. Its availability in 8-pin SO, DIP and 0,9 mm thick DFN packages, with temperature qualification up to 125°C, makes the new series an ideal choice for HVAC (heating, ventilation and airconditioning), home appliance, lighting control and power-tool applications.
With a 2 Kbyte flash program memory - twice as large as previous devices - and 128 bytes of data EEPROM, they have a significantly larger software capacity than previous devices. In addition they include a trimmable 8 MHz RC oscillator, with prescaler ratios down to 500 kHz, and a very stable and accurate low-voltage and auxiliary voltage detector, according to the company.
The very small 8-pin MCUs target simple motor drives and include features such as an embedded 12-bit auto-reload timer, operating over a 2 kHz to 4 MHz range, which can generate four independent PWM (pulse width modulated) signals, with output compare function. The timer also includes programmable dead-time generation for the half-bridge driving mode in which PWM signals must not be allowed to overlap, plus programmable duty cycles, polarity control and programmable output modes.
Other key system peripherals are an 8-bit Lite timer with prescaler, watchdog, realtime base and input capture; and a very fast, 5-channel, 10-bit ADC with 3,5 microsecond overall conversion time, which the company claims is the fastest in the 8-bit MCU market. Five power-saving modes - Halt, Auto Wake-Up from Halt, Active Halt, Wait and Slow - offer the designer very high flexibility to minimise the overall power consumption in power-critical applications.
Development support is available through a complete set of hardware and software tool chains from STMicroelectronics and from third parties. The inexpensive tools - such as ST's Stick Programmer and the Raisonance ReVA Evaluation kit and R-link USB Debugging and Programming Tool - will enable developers to rapidly and efficiently create, build and debug low-cost MCU-based systems. These tools, which also provide an excellent introduction for new users to the ST7 development environment, integrate easily with the free ST7 C compiler from Cosmic (up to 16 K code size, free of charge), and are supported by ST's free STVD7 Software IDE (Integrated Development Environment).
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