Datasheet: Microamps Per Megahertz Ultra-Low Power MCUs Minimize Current Consumption

How do chip makers differentiate if many ultra-low power MCUs on the market feature the same processor core? The peripherals and different power states offer various ways to manage current consumption down to microamps per megahertz.

- Tom Murphy

What criteria do embedded developers and chip makers use to determine what makes a microcontroller qualify as an ultra-low-power device? For some MCU architectures, low power consumption is intrinsic by nature due to relatively small size, low-frequency cores, and minimal memory resources. The Arm Cortex-M4F core is one that comes to mind, and in this month's Datasheet, the architecture is well represented among nine different selections.