XRM32UL051 is an ARMCortex-based ultra-low power consumption MCU chip based on ARMCortex-M0, the highest operating frequency can reach 48MHz , the highest operating frequency can reach 64KB program space and 18KBSRAM storage space. ULPMark, as the authoritative standard of ultra-low power consumption MCU, affirms the ultra-low power consumption technology of Zhongke Xinrui.

In recent years, with the rise of the Internet of Things, various IoT devices have flooded the market. According to the data and forecast of China Industrial Information Network, the number of IoT devices in the world has reached 10.7 billion in 2019, and the number of IoT connections is expected to reach 25.1 billion in 2025, maintaining a growth rate of more than 12%.

However, behind the huge market, the battery life of IoT devices has gradually become an issue that restricts the development of battery-powered IoT products. The limited battery capacity makes it difficult to meet the increasing durability demands of consumers. How to improve device durability with limited battery capacity? Obviously, low power consumption has become an inevitable topic for manufacturers, and in order to solve the power consumption problem, we must start with the chip.

Facing the huge demand for IoT node applications in the future, ultra-low-power MCUs are getting more and more attention. Many domestic MCU manufacturers, including Coreray, seized the opportunity and brewed new changes.

International recognition: low-power MCU ranks first

For a long time, low power consumption has been an inevitable technical topic in the development of the Internet of Things. System power consumption is one of the main considerations for IoT deployments. The reason is that most of the IoT terminal nodes are currently powered by batteries, and the MCU is the core device that controls the entire IoT node, and its energy consumption level determines the overall power consumption characteristics of the IoT node. There is no doubt that low power consumption has naturally become an important indicator of MCU.

As IoT applications gradually enter the industrial and consumer fields, higher requirements are placed on the low power consumption and integration of MCUs. Whether it is consumer electronics or wearable devices, as long as battery-powered IoT terminals have strict requirements for low power consumption, product durability is also closely related to consumer experience. The greater the power consumption of the electronic system, the poorer the product durability and the poorer the consumer experience. Conversely, the lower the energy consumption, the better the consumer experience.

Even in the non-consumer space, large-scale deployment of IoT nodes faces high maintenance costs. Most products require manual battery replacement for maintenance because the battery's power supply capacity cannot sustain the entire product life cycle. The large-scale deployment of IoT nodes has the characteristics of irregular spatial layout, which brings huge cost pressure to maintenance.

Driven by a large number of IoT applications, ultra-low power consumption has undoubtedly become the core competitiveness of MCUs. International MCU giants STMicroelectronics and Renesas Semiconductor are also actively deploying ultra-low power consumption.

Beijing Zhongke Xinrui Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhongke Xinrui) was established in 2019 and can be said to be a new star in the domestic ultra-low power MCU field in the past two years. Products for the Internet of Things, wearable electronics, artificial intelligence and other fields, providing ultra-low-power chips and solutions, with a number of ultra-low-power integrated circuit design technology black technology.

Since its establishment two years ago, Xinrui has launched a series of products such as ultra-low-power MCU, real-time clock, AD9215BRU-65 low-power voice signal processor, and signal conditioning. The power consumption performance indicators of the products are at the international leading level.

Among them, XRM32UL051 is an ultra-low power consumption MCU chip based on ARMCortex-ARMCortex-M0+, the highest operating frequency can reach 48MHz, the highest operating frequency can reach 64KB program space and 18KBSRAM storage space. The product also supports a wealth of external resources, the working voltage is between 2.0V-3.6V, and the working temperature range is -40℃~+85℃. It can provide a variety of packaging forms to meet the needs of different applications.

In addition, XRM32UL051 adopts unique sub-threshold technology and asynchronous circuit technology to support various low-power modes such as ACTIVE, SLEEP, STOP, STANDBY, etc. In various working modes, there are excellent power consumption indicators. Specifically, the power consumption of the product is 20uA/MHz in the running mode and 0.7uA in the stop mode, and the power consumption is only 1/4~1/5 of similar products on the market. The extremely low energy consumption can be widely used in the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, wearable electronics and other fields.

As we all know, different microcontroller and microprocessor manufacturers in the industry have different products, so it is difficult to standardize the evaluation of products. In order to better evaluate the power consumption characteristics of low-power MCUs, the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) has jointly launched ULPMark with major MCU manufacturers through the same algorithm and the same current test board to standardize various products. Evaluation. ULPMark, as the authoritative standard of ultra-low power consumption MCU, affirms the ultra-low power consumption technology of Zhongke Xinrui. At present, Zhongke Xinrui XRM32UL051 has passed the ULPMark evaluation, and the evaluation score is as high as 451 points, ranking first in the world in the same core.

Innovative Technology Route: Combination of Two Ultra-Low-Power Technologies

International recognition is inseparable from the strong technical strength and excellent R&D team of Zhongke Xinrui.

In general, sub-threshold circuit design is the only way to design ultra-low power MCUs because it can reduce the operating voltage of the chip to near the transistor threshold, thereby reducing static leakage and dynamic power consumption. As we all know, MCU power consumption is generally divided into static leakage and dynamic power consumption. In the static leakage section, what we can do to reduce leakage is to lower the supply voltage and use a low leakage standard cell design. In the dynamic power section, the power supply voltage or circuit invalid switching can be reduced to reduce power consumption.

Different from the traditional ultra-low-power integrated circuit design technology route, Xinrui not only adopts the above-mentioned sub-threshold chip design technology, but also adopts the asynchronous circuit design technology. Asynchronous circuit technology, event-triggered, can completely eliminate invalid toggling in circuits. More importantly, asynchronous circuit technology can effectively solve the timing problems faced by sub-threshold technology, and more effectively exert the power consumption optimization effect of sub-threshold technology.

Through the combination of two state-of-the-art ultra-low-power technologies, Xinrui independently developed a multi-level STAS ultra-low-power design platform, including the underlying IP library, design process, system architecture, etc. Products developed based on this platform achieve the optimization effect of 1+1>2. With the support of major national projects, the Xinrui team has formed a unique ultra-low power chip design method with independent intellectual property rights after more than ten years of technology accumulation.

According to reports, Xinrui is a high-tech enterprise incubated by the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and it is the earliest team in China to study ultra-low power design methods and technologies. The research and development of related technologies has been supported by the National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program), the National Major Science and Technology Project (01.02 Project), the Major Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Strategic Pilot Technology Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has gradually formed a mature and perfect new ultra-low power circuit. Design technical system.

In addition, its R&D team has also designed the first domestic sub-threshold processor for a leading enterprise in the domestic integrated circuit design field, achieving zero breakthroughs in various technical indicators in China.

The strong hard power not only made Zhongke Core win the first place in the MCU low power consumption list, but also won the support of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Science and Technology Service Network Program (STS) Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation Guidance Project and the title and qualification of Zhongguancun High-tech Enterprise . A germ enterprise in Haidian District, Beijing. This year, Zhongke Core XRM32UL051 won the Core New Product Award in the 16th China Core Excellent Product Collection, which also shows that its ultra-low power consumption products have been recognized by the domestic industry.

"China Core" trophy

Expanding the ground: maintaining the leading position of ultra-low power technology

Judging from the current technology development trends, the demand for low-power MCUs in the IoT ecosystem and consumer electronics will continue to increase in the future. In other words, the ultra-low-power MCU market will usher in rapid growth. According to MarketsandMarkets, the ultra-low-power microcontroller market size was $4.4 billion in 2019, and will grow to $12.9 billion by 2024, with a compound annual growth rate of 24.1%.

Facing the ever-increasing demand for product power consumption in the terminal market, Zhongke Xinrui, which is characterized by its leading technology, will continue to achieve excellent performance through technological breakthroughs and create technical barriers.

In view of the increasing demand for edge computing in some Internet of Things application scenarios, traditional MCUs cannot meet this operational demand, Zhongkexinrui plans to launch a lightweight AIOT processor with RISC-V core + AI engine. At the same time, in order to enrich the product line to cope with more application scenarios, CoreCore will launch more general-purpose ultra-low power MCUs with cores. In addition, CoreCore will also launch customized ultra-low-power MCUs for medical and energy measurement industries to further improve the market competitiveness of customer products. In addition to building barriers in the technical field, Zhongke Xinrui will also put forward higher requirements for intellectual property protection. Due to the adoption of innovative sub-threshold chip design technology and asynchronous circuit design technology, Zhongke Xinrui has applied for nearly 30 invention patents in related fields. According to reports, in the early stage of development, Zhongke Xinrui focused on the patent layout of core technology points. In the future, it will adopt the method of face-to-face replacement of points for patent deployment, and strive to form interrelated patent groups and patent pools in multiple characteristic fields. It is expected that in 2024, it will have more than 50 core invention patents, and build an intellectual property protection system that comprehensively protects innovation.

With the continuous emergence of innovative terminal products, as a leader in ultra-low power consumption technology, Coreray will continue to expand its territory, continue to increase R&D and production investment, continue to expand product lines, and enrich product application scenarios.

write at the end

At present, China's MCU market space is vast. The semiconductor industry research team of Morgan Stanley in Greater China believes that the growth rate of production demand for Chinese MCU localization enterprises will increase significantly, from 2017 to 2020, with an average annual rate of 5%, and from 20-25% to 2025.

Under the epidemic, the global core shortage crisis and geopolitical friction, localization may become a rigid demand, and the Chinese MCU market will also usher in a new turning point, and ultra-low-power MCUs are no exception.

Ricard de Saearp, vice president of the Italian Semiconductor Department and general manager of the microcontroller business unit, once said: In the past five years, the global share of ST microcontrollers has almost doubled, and the shipments of STM32 ultra-low power microcontrollers have so far has exceeded 2 billion. ST has a strong presence in the ultra-low-power microcontroller category, capturing about 25% of the market. It can be speculated that the global ultra-low power microcontroller market exceeds 10 billion.

It can be seen that the domestic low-power MCU track is expected to usher in a golden age. Behind the vast market space is predictable technological development, and we look forward to Zhongke Xinrui making greater progress in the field of ultra-low power consumption.