The Si100x/1x family is the industry’s lowest power single-chip MCU with integrated sub-GHz RF transceiver. It has been designed to address the specific requirements of low power embedded systems requiring an RF bi-directional communication link such as smart metering, in-home utility monitoring, wireless security panels, wireless sensors, home and building automation and access control.

Having the lowest system power allows the ability to choose your most suitable value proposition: longer battery life, higher product performance or lower system cost. With an increasing number of applications and regulations demanding lower power and energy saving modes, the Si100x/1x family is a very desirable solution. It has the industry’s lowest active mode current consumption which saves power when the application is running. It also has the industry’s lowest current consumption sleep modes that save power when the device is sleeping, which is typically the majority of time in most battery powered applications. The Si100x/1x family includes up to 64 kB of Flash, an EZRadioPRO® transceiver, a 10 or 12-bit ADC and a 25 MHz processor all in a compact 5x7 mm2 package at a competitive price.

Target applications include water, gas, and heat metering, home security and asset tracking. If your design requires specific protocols such as wireless M-Bus or other networking environments, the Si100x/10x wireless MCU can greatly benefit you.  In gas and water meters, the Si100x/1x performs the metrology function—actual sensing of the metered fluid, as well as the interface and network management of the wireless protocol. In heat meters, actual monitoring and billing of heat cost allocation is often desired where a centralized boiler provides heated water to different households in a shared building. The amount of “heat” each family uses via their radiator is measured and billed to them proportionally. Since many gas, water, and heat meters use 3 V lithium batteries, the flexible LDO and PMU provide the lowest active mode and sleep mode currents. This directly translates into longer battery life.

Other applications include a user interface that will likely need a LCD controller.  The Silicon Labs CP240x is a standalone, fixed-function LCD driver that generates the drive signals for any static or multiplexed LCD. The CP240x has been designed to interface directly to the Si100x/1x (or any other microcontroller) via a standard SPI or SMBus/I2C interface and it has the ability to control up to 128 segments (CP2400/1) or 64 segments (CP2402/3). Most importantly, the CP240x LCD driver family has been designed with low power in mind.