STMicroelectronics completed its ST7 UltraLite family of 8-pin microcontrollers - intended for HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning), home appliance, lighting control and power-tool markets. With a 2-Kbyte Flash program memory, and 128-bytes of data EEPROM, the new tiny devices have a larger software capacity. In addition they include a trimmable 8MHz RC oscillator, with prescaler ratios down to 500kHz, and a very stable and accurate Low-Voltage and Auxiliary Voltage Detector. The 8-pin MCUs target simple motor drives and include features such as an embedded 12-bit auto-reload timer, operating over a 2kHz to 4MHz 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 system peripherals are an 8-bit Lite timer with prescaler, watchdog, real-time base and input capture; and a 5-channel, 10-bit ADC with 3.5 microsecond overall conversion time, the fastest in the 8-bit MCU market. Five power-saving modes - Halt, Auto Wake-Up from Halt, Active Halt, Wait and Slow - offer flexibility to minimize the overall power consumption in power-critical applications.

Development support

Development support is available through a complete set of hardware and software tool chains from ST and from third parties. The 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 16K code-size, free of charge), and are supported by ST's free STVD7 Software IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Samples of the 8-pin ST7FLITEU0 are available now in SO8, DIP8, DFN8 and DIP16 (for sampling only) packages, with the development tools; volume production will start during Q2 2007. Pricing for 10,000 units starts at US$0.55.