I recently wrote about the low-power battle between the 8-bit Micochip PIC and 16-bit TI MSP430.  In retrospect I should have included Energy Micro’s 32-bit EFM32 “Tiny Gecko” MCUs in the showdown.  These ARM Cortex-M3 based MCUs have sub-$1 prices and amazing power numbers.  Here’s what energy Micro claims for the EFM32:

• 180 µA/MHz while running applications from Flash memory
• Shutoff mode with only 20 nA current consumption
• Energy Modes with only 2 µs wake-up time

These numbers are in the same territory as the PIC and MSP430, and the EFM32 has the added bonus of running on the 32-bit ARM architecture.  That means (1) you get a more powerful architecture and (2) you can easily move code from the EFM32 to one of the many other ARM-based MCUs from STMicroelectronics, TI, NXP, etc.  (In contrast, the PIC and MSP430 are proprietary architectures.)  Those are some major advantages—no wonder the EFM32 took home the Embedded Award at Embedded World 2010!

Long story short, the EFM32 earns my enthusiastic approval.  It’s definitely worth a look if you’re in the market for a low-cost, low-power MCU.