CEO Interview: Ambiq Sees Broader Options for Low Voltage
Peter Clarke, EETimes
8/25/2015 09:42 PM EDT
LONDON — Mike Noonen, recently appointed interim CEO at microcontroller startup Ambiq Micro, discusses the focus and opportunities for this pioneering company designing circuits that can operate below the threshold voltage of the constituent transistors.
In January 2015 Ambiq Micro Inc. (Austin, Texas) introduced the Apollo family of Cortex-M4F-based microcontrollers. These MCUs can operate at voltages below 0.5V and the company claims that this can provide a 10-fold improvement in MCU power consumption compared with competitors' MCUs. This is mainly based on the fact that power consumption scales with the square of voltage, although the achievable clock frequency for digital circuits also reduces with the voltage.
However, Ambiq's sub-threshold technology is not limited to MCUs. MCUs are almost always mixed-signal circuits and Ambiq already sells a range of real-time clock (RTC) circuits based on its technology. Noonen's ambitions for the company are broad.
To read the full article, click here
Related Semiconductor IP
- SLVS Transceiver in TSMC 28nm
- 0.9V/2.5V I/O Library in TSMC 55nm
- 1.8V/3.3V Multi-Voltage GPIO in TSMC 28nm
- 1.8V/3.3V I/O Library with 5V ODIO & Analog in TSMC 16nm
- ESD Solutions for Multi-Gigabit SerDes in TSMC 28nm
Related News
- CEO Interview: Andes' Cores For IoT Suit Europe
- CEO interview: S3 Semi ready for custom opportunity
- CEO interview: Flex Logix' Geoff Tate on licensing FPGA
- CEO interview: The importance of being agile
Latest News
- Latest intoPIX JPEG XS Codec Powers FOR-A’s FA-1616 for Efficient IP Production at NAB 2025
- VeriSilicon Launches ISP9000: The Next-Generation AI-Embedded ISP for Intelligent Vision Applications
- GUC Announces Tape-Out of the World's First HBM4 IP on TSMC N3P
- lowRISC and SCI Semiconductor Release Sunburst Chip Repository for Secure Microcontroller Development
- BrainChip Partners with RTX’s Raytheon for AFRL Radar Contract