Oslo, Norway, 3 April 2012 – Energy Micro, the energy friendly microcontroller and radio company, announces an agreement with Pervasive Displays Inc. (PDI) for using the EFM32 Gecko MCU to control low power e-paper (EPD) displays. The collaboration will enable developers to reduce development time for applications based on the energy friendly EFM32 EPD platform.
Energy Micro’s Taiwan distribution and design partner, Retronix, provided technical and commercial support during the development of the supporting reference design.
Electronic paper is the lowest power display technology because the devices do not consume energy after they have been updated, however long the image is displayed. PDI’s e-paper displays, which are ruggedly designed for industrial and commercial applications, reflect light like ordinary paper, making them easy to read in both outdoor and indoor applications. They are currently available in sizes from 1.44-inch to 10.2-inch (37mm to 260mm), the largest with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 (160dpi).
Energy Micro’s EFM32G890F128 Gecko MCU combines ultra-low power and high processing capabilities based on the powerful 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 processor. The EFM32 MCU was chosen for PDI’s e-paper because it combines low active power of 180µA/MHz at 3V with the world’s lowest power standby modes, down to 20nA at 3V in shut-off mode, further augmenting the intrinsic low energy consumption characteristics of the display.
Efficient energy modes, a low energy UART and the device’s Peripheral Reflex System make the EFM32 the ideal controller for e-paper applications. The Gecko MCU delivers the processing power needed to refresh the EPD display very quickly. The “EPD-On SK2” reference design uses the standard EFM32 Gecko starter kit (STK) to handle waveform library functions, image transmission via a USB and UART bridge, driving the electrophoretic display’s chip-on-film controller, and displaying the optimized result. The complete reference design from Retronix is powered by USB or a CR2032 coin cell battery.
“Using Energy Micro’s EFM32 Gecko microcontrollers, a single lithium battery cell can power a PDI display for several years in a typical application,” said Andrea Marchi, Energy Micro’s VP Sales and Marketing Asia Pacific. “This is exactly the kind of application for which the EFM32 Gecko MCU was developed.”
Damon Hess, VP of Worldwide Sales at PDI added: “E-displays are creating new applications that were not possible with conventional display technologies. In every case, minimal energy consumption is a key requirement. Programmable shelf labels in retail stores are just one example. Most applications are battery-powered and, after exhaustive research across the microcontroller market, we found Energy Micro’s MCU to be the lowest power solution by a considerable margin. Also, its processing power optimizes the performance of our displays.”
The Retronix “EPD-On SK-2” reference design is available now from Retronix. Pervasive Display products and samples can be ordered through its network of worldwide distributors, found on PDI’s homepage.
About Energy Micro
Energy Micro is a global provider of energy friendly microcontrollers and RF transceivers based on the ARM® Cortex™ processor core. Consuming a quarter of the energy of competing products, the company’s ultra low power EFM32 Gecko MCUs and EFR4 Draco radios target energy sensitive applications, including smart metering, building automation, security systems portable health and fitness equipment and smart accessories. The products are supported by Energy Micro’s Simplicity Studio, the easy-to-use software console that helps to reduce embedded system development times by a half. Further information is available at www.energymicro.com