Oki Electric Industry Co., today announced it has developed ultra low power current real time clock (RTC) ICs with the world’s lowest current consumption at just 0.15μA. The newly developed “ML9073/ML9074” series has 1.5-fold longer battery life than conventional chips. Most devices including digital cameras, audio players, TVs and DVD recorders have a built-in real-time clock (RCT) for their clock functions to keep accurate time even when the power is turned off. However, most RTCs are embedded in ASICs and MPUs as an IP and it is difficult to minimize current consumption because ASICs and MPUs use leading edge processes.
Thus, reducing current consumption when the power is turned off has been a challenge in mobile equipment that runs on small batteries such as button dry batteries. OKI will provide samples of this product to makers of mobile and AV equipment that requires long operating time from today.