Texas Instruments Announces New MCU For E-Metering Applications
Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) announced the new ultra-low power MSP430F471xx microcontroller (MCU) series. The F471xx system-on-chip metering solution achieves leading accuracy results, and offers simultaneous sampling of voltage and current as well as tamper-detection for efficient and reliable energy measurement.
Key features and benefits of the MSP430F471xx three-phase e-metering MCU include: integrated MCU solution with dedicated 16-bit sigma delta converters for three-phase e-metering applications; precise energy measurements with better than 0.1% accuracy; well suited for power-line monitoring with simultaneous sampling of all channels; ultra-low power consumption when LCD, real-time clock and other peripherals are in use helps maintain data when back-up battery is used during power outage; support of tamper detection and high-precision measurements like temperature and humidity with 7th sigma delta converter for measurement of current and voltage signals; flexible memory options with up to 120kB Flash and 8kB RAM; and development made easy with code examples, evaluation module and application note that details faster calibration to jump-start design.
TI’s comprehensive utility metering portfolio includes devices targeted at electricity, water and gas metering, as well as power line communications (PLC) and radio frequency (RF) interfaces for advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) that allow customers to design smart grid solutions. From highly optimized application specific embedded processors, low power RF, power management and RFID to dedicated software support for ZigBee,6LoWPAN, WMBUS, OFDM and SFSK modulations, TI offers the most complete solution set for smart metering.
F471xx MCUs are priced between $5.75 and $7.95 for 1K units and are available now along with the $75 MSP-TS430PZ100A target board. In addition, these devices are fully compatible with the $149 MSP-FET430U100A flash emulation tool and e-meter EVM.
