Microchip announces an expansion of its low pin-count 16-bit eXtreme Low Power PIC® MCUs by adding an on-chip 12-bit ADC, EEPROM, intelligent mTouch™ capacitive sensing, and the capability to run from a 5V supply. Featuring extremely low sleep currents down to 20 nA, which is common to all XLP PIC MCUs, the PIC24F32KA304 provides designers with versatile low-power MCUs for industrial, automotive, medical, utility metering, white goods and many other applications.
The PIC24F32KA304 family expands on the popular PIC24F16KA range by adding twice as much Flash programme memory and 30% more RAM to enhance support for wireless-communication protocol stacks. PIC24F32KA304 also integrates three times as many timers and Pulse-Width Modulators and twice as many UART, I2C™ and SPI channels. The resolution of the Analogue-to-Digital Converter has been quadrupled to 12-bits and the pin count increased to 44-pins, compared to the PIC24F16KA family. The new PIC24F32KA304 MCUs’ intelligent mTouch sensing module includes a Charge Time Measurement Unit (CTMU) that performs an automated scan in sleep mode to enable extremely low-power capacitive sensing. This new CTMU dramatically reduces current, to conserve even more battery power in portable applications. Full analogue performance up to 5V allows the PIC24F32KA304 to simplify power-supply design by eliminating the need for discrete voltage regulators in 5V applications such as automotive and white-goods.
The PIC24F32KA304 family joins over 100 Microchip MCUs which feature XLP technology which provides the industry with its lowest sleep and active currents, multiple wake-up sources, and more peripherals which operate in sleep mode without CPU intervention. These features allow designers to add application features without the customary increase in power consumption.
Rapid development is supported by the PIC24F32KA304 Plug-In Module (MA240022), priced at $25, which is a plug-in for the Explorer 16 Development Board (DM240001, $129.99). Alternatively, 20- and 28-pin PDIP packages are supported by the XLP 16-bit Development Board (DM240311, $59.99). The MPLAB® IDE, MPLAB C Compiler for PIC24 MCUs and dsPIC® DSCs, MPLAB ICD3 In-Circuit Debugger
(DV164035, $189.99) and PICkit™ 3 Debugger/Programmer (PG164130, $44.95) can also be used for development of the PIC24F32KA304 family.
The family is available in two voltage ranges, the PIC24FxxKA3xx versions operate from 1.8 to 3.6V, whilst PIC24FVxxKA3xx devices operate from 2 to 5V. Pin counts range from 20-pin to 48-pins, with PIC24F(FV)16KA301 available in 20-pin PDIP, SOIC and SSOP packages; PIC24F(FV)32KA302 offered in 28-pin SOIC, SSOP, SPDIP and 6 mm x 6 mm QFN packages; and the PIC24F(FV)32KA304 available in 44-pin TQFP and 8 mm x 8 mm QFN packages, as well as a 48-pin 6 mm x 6 mm UQFN package. Samples are available now.
For more information, visit Microchip’s Web site at http://www.microchip.com/get/9MBT