Microchip Technology Unveils Latest Evolution of General-Purpose, Small Microcontrollers
Microchip Technology Inc. announced a new four-member family of 28- and 40/44-pin PIC® microcontrollers for use in a wide range of applications. The PIC16F88X family maintains compatibility with the PIC16F87XA family for easy migration, while providing a host of new features designed to save users time and money – both during and after their design cycle. The enhancements include dual internal oscillators with clock switching and fail-safe clock mode; more (up to 14) ADC channels; an advanced comparator module featuring two comparators and a Set/Reset Latch to allow emulation of many analog circuits; and low-power enhancements that extend battery life.
Embedded system designers' marketplaces are constantly changing. Quite often, functions and features are added to a customer's product in the middle of the design cycle, as new requirements emerge. Therefore, system designs must be fluid and easily adaptable in order to evolve with the changing landscape. These dynamics require a high degree of flexibility from the chosen microcontroller architecture. Microchip's PIC16F88X family is complemented by a vast portfolio of pin- and code-compatible PIC microcontrollers that enable customers to quickly move to the right part for their chosen application, without having to write all new code.
Microchip's broad portfolio of low pin count 8-bit PIC microcontrollers targets a wide range of general-purpose, horizontal applications, and the PIC16F88X family is no exception. Specific application examples include battery-operated systems and battery management, space-constrained and small form factor applications, analog-intensive applications (due to the rich on-chip analog peripheral set), and mechatronics.
The four new devices are supported by the full suite of Microchip's development tools, including the PICkit™ 2 Development Programmer (PG164120), $34.99, the free MPLAB® IDE integrated development environment, the MPLAB ICE 2000 emulator, and the low-cost MPLAB ICD 2 in-circuit debugger.
The PIC16F886 and PIC16F887 microcontrollers are available now for general sampling and volume production shipments. The PIC16F883 and PIC16F884 microcontrollers are expected to be available in December. Pricing for this four-member family starts at $1.58 each in 10,000 unit quantities. The PIC16F883 and PIC16F886 come in 28-pin PDIP, SOIC, SSOP and QFN packages, while the PIC16F884 and PIC16F887 are available in 40-pin PDIP, and 44-pin QFN and TQFP package options.
