To meet the tough requirements of modern microcontrollers, Microchip has now combined ten years of low power research and development into picoPower technology for AVR 8- and 32-bit microcontrollers. Microchip's picoPower technology enables AVR to achieve one of the industry’s lowest power consumptions of 650 nA with an RTC running and 100 nA in power down sleep. Key features that enable very low power consumption include a sleep controller that controls up to six different sleep modes. A unique sleep mode associated with these devices is the mode where the crystal is kept running, but where the rest of the device is in power down ensuring the fastest possible wake-up time even when using an external crystal. With AVR’s fast wake-up feature, the microcontroller can wake up in less than 1 µs enabling the use of power down modes more often, thereby reducing the average power consumption. Another feature is software controlled operating frequency which switches to high speed when performance is needed. This can save up to 20% power compared to running at only one speed. Additionally, high code density ensures that a minimum of instructions are needed to execute a specific task, thereby reducing the power consumption significantly. Single cycle execution further reduces the number of clock cycles needed, thereby saving power.