CMicrotek Announces Line of Ultra-Low Current Probes Optimized for Battery-Powered Product Development

LONGMONT, CO, March 26, 2014 (Press-News.org) CMicrotek has announced the uCurrent Probe line of ultra-low current probes, optimized for the wide dynamic current ranges of today's battery powered products.

"The latest generation of low-power micros can draw as little as 4 or 5 nA in sleep mode," explains Mike Lease, President and founder of CMicrotek. "Using the traditional method of measuring voltage drop across a sense resistor, an engineer can use a large enough resistor to measure such low currents with a standard scope probe. However, turn on a wireless radio and instantly the current draw can jump over 100,000 times higher, causing the sense resistor to drop so much voltage the circuit stops working. With a small enough resistor to measure the current when the radio is on you can't see the small fluctuations when the micro transitions between operating and sleep modes. You can't measure what you can't see and developing new and innovative products is hard enough without trying to guesstimate power consumption based on static current measurements."

"Low power consumption is enabling much of the innovation we're seeing in consumer electronics, energy harvesting, wearable technology, the Internet of Things, medical devices, robotics, the Maker movement and more. Product development managers and engineer's need the certainty in their current measurements that our products provide in order to meet their product specs and project schedules," says Mike.

The first product in the uCurrent Probe line is the uCP100, capable of measurements as low as 2nA and an input voltage range from 0V to 20VDC, making it usable with all common small battery voltages and logic power rails. This voltage range also makes the uCP100 ideal for use with small energy harvesting power sources. The uCP100's high gain amplifier and zoom view option allows engineers to avoid analyzing current waveforms using a scope's lowest volts per division setting, typically their least accurate measurement range. The uCP100 provides three measurement ranges, precision mode with a 2nA to 40uA range, wide-range mode with a 1uA to 400mA range and an external sense resistor mode which allows the range to be optimized for a specific target system.

The uCP100 can be ordered now, priced at $595 including universal input power supply, BNC-to-BNC scope cable and micro gripper clips. Data sheet and a video demo are on the CMicrotek website at www.cmicrotek.com.

About CMicrotek
CMicrotek is developing a family of instruments for ultra-low current and power measurements. The company's products are intended for use in battery and energy harvesting powered products as well as line-powered products where energy efficiency is critical.