Toward Non-CPU Activity in Low-Power MCU-Based Measurement Systems

This article evaluates the benefits of having peripheral-triggered peripherals in a microcontroller unit (MCU) intended for low-power sensor applications. In such an architecture, the functionality is moved from the central processing unit (CPU) to the peripherals so that a peripheral is able to trigger another peripheral with non-CPU intervention. For the sensor data logging application under study, both energy consumption and measuring time are reduced by a factor of 2 with respect to the case of applying an interrupt-based approach that requires the CPU intervention.