Last year at Embedded World 2013, Freescale announced Kinetis KL02, an ARM Cortex M0+ MCU measuring just 1.9 x 2.0mm. Customer must have complained that it’s not small enough, as the company has just unveiled Kinetis KL03 MCU, 15% smaller or 1.6 x 2.0 mm, at Embedded World 2014. Just like its predecessor KL03 targets space-constraint IoT applications such as ingestible healthcare sensing, portable consumer devices, remote sensing nodes, and wearable devices.
Kinetis KL03 MCU features include:
- 48 MHz ARM Cortex-M0+ core, 1.71-3.6V operation
- Bit manipulation engine for faster, more code-efficient handling of peripheral registers
- 8 to 32 KB flash memory, 2 KB RAM, 8K ROM with on-chip boot loader
- High-speed 12-bit ADC
- Internal voltage reference for high ADC accuracy
- High-speed analog comparator
- Up to 22 GPIOs with pin interrupt support
- Low-power UART, SPI, I2C (high speed)
- Low power wake up
- Secure real time clock
- Timers for a broad range of applications including motor control
- -40 °C to +85 °C operation
KL03 has less SRAM compared to KL02 (2KB vs 4KB) but seems to have added an RTC, an internal voltage reference. and a 8KB BootROM. This BootROM allows factory programming and on-line system firmware upgrades without adding circuitry to the board. Beside the ultra small 20 WLCSP (1.6 x 2.0 mm) package, KL03 MCUs are also available with 16QFN (3 x 3 mm) and 24 QFN (4 x 4 mm) packages. MKL03Z32xxx4 with 32 KB Flash is the only one available with WLCSP package.
As usual, Freescale also announced a low cost Freedom development platform for Kinetis, FRDM-KL03Z, so that developers can quick start their project as soon as possible. Development tools include CodeWarrior for MCUs V10.x (Eclipse) IDE, IAR Embedded Workbench, ARM Keil MDK, Atollic and GCC, and MQX Lite and FreeRTOS are supported by KL03 MCUs.
Kinetis KL03 MCU sampling will begin next month, with full production planned for June 2014. Suggested pricing is $0.75 in 100K-unit quantities. There are no details about FRDM-KL03Z development board at this time. To learn more about the new Freescale MCU, visit freescale.com/kinetis/kl03csp.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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