Silicon Laboratories (News - Alert) Inc. has introduced ultra-low power, capacitive touch-sense microcontrollers - known as MCUs - which deliver wake-on-touch power consumption below one microamp.

The latest additions to Silicon Labs' C8051F9xx product line include F99x MCUs, with integrated touch-sense technology for human interface applications, and F98x MCUs, targeting power- and cost-sensitive applications, such as home automation, smart meters, lighting control, security systems, games and toys.

The new F99x and F98x MCUs also integrate a 25 MHz pipelined 8051-compatible core, a precision oscillator, a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter, a temperature monitoring sensor, a voltage reference and four timers.

Like other members of the F9xx MCU family, Silicon Labs' new ultra-low-power F99x and F98x MCUs offer the industry's lowest power consumption in active mode, sleep mode and deep sleep mode, the company said.

In addition to consuming the lowest current per MHz, the new MCUs contain an integrated low drop-out regulator that keeps the current constant at 150 microamps per MHz over the entire operating range of 1.8 to 3.6 V.

The on-chip LDO regulator helps reduce the MCU's drain on the battery by 50 percent compared to competing products, which extends battery life and makes the ultra-low-power F99x and F98x MCUs ideal for battery-powered applications, the company said.

"With the introduction of our latest ultra-low-power MCUs, we've expanded our industry-leading F9xx family to provide additional feature set and memory size options to meet our customers' application needs," said Mark Thompson, vice president of embedded mixed-signal products at Silicon Labs. "As the first IC supplier to achieve sub-microamp wake-on-touch power consumption for touch-sense MCUs, we continue to push the boundaries of extreme power efficiency through mixed-signal innovation."

The new F99x touch-sense MCUs combine ultra-low-power capabilities with fast, accurate capacitive sensing technology to address the rapidly growing touch-sensing market. The F99x devices feature a patent-pending, high-resolution capacitance-to-digital converter with a 40 microsecond acquisition time, enabling the industry's fastest capacitive touch-sense capability, the company said.

The CDC also offers noise immunity in challenging conditions and configurations such as thick laminate overlays, electrical noise or variances in circuit board manufacturing.

Samples of the new F9xx MCUs are available now with production quantities planned for the third quarter.

In other company news, Silicon Laboratories Inc. recently introduced an innovative digital TV demodulator that combines satellite, terrestrial and cable digital video broadcast functions in one highly integrated device.