MICROCHIP Technology has expanded its PIC18F family of Flash microcontrollers in 64 and 80-pin TQFP packages to include a low-cost 32kB memory device.
Suitable for applications requiring a large memory, the large pin-count PICmicro microcontrollers offer designers added I/Os, timers, a feature-rich peripheral set and the flexibility of field self-programmability.
The PIC18F6520 and PIC18F8520 microcontrollers feature Microchip's PMOS Electrically Erasable Cell (PEEC) process technology, which provides best-in-class erase/write endurance, retention, and disturb reliability for both program and on-chip data EEPROM memory.
The PIC18F6520 and PIC18F8520 microcontrollers are code-compatible with Microchip's PIC18F452 and PIC18F8720 families of Flash devices, enabling designers to re-use software and hardware in existing platforms, thus lowering overall development costs and time-to-market issues.
By migrating to the new devices, users of Microchip's PIC18F452 devices retain the large 32kB memory and receive the added benefit of the analogue and digital peripherals and connectivity options of the high pin-count devices.
Current users of the PIC18F8720 family have the ability to migrate to a smaller memory microcontroller at a lower cost without forfeiting any of the analogue or digital features or connectivity options.
Users of Microchip's one-time programmable (OTP) PIC17C7XX devices have the benefit of being able to migrate to a microcontroller that features the same analogue and digital peripherals and connectivity options as the OTP device, but offers the flexibility of a reprogrammable Flash memory device.
The PIC18F6520 and PIC18F8520 feature 32kB of Flash memory, 2kB of RAM memory and 1,024 bytes of high endurance EEPROM data memory.
The feature-rich peripheral set includes an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) with up to 16 channels x 10-bit resolution, five Capture/Compare/PWM modules, up to 10 MIPS performance at 10 MHz, two 8-bit timers, three 16-bit timers and one watch-dog timer (WDT), dual analogue comparators and a parallel slave port (PSP).
Additional features include an operating voltage range of 2.0-5.5 volts, programmable brown-out detection/reset (PBOR), programmable 16-level low voltage detection module (PLVD), 32kHz secondary oscillator clock input and a 4x phase lock loop (PLL) for high-frequency oscillators.
Serial I/O features include SPI, I2C, and two addressable USART modules supporting RS485 and RS232.
Samples and volume production are available now.
Microchip has also announced the low-cost PIC18FXX20 64/80L TQFP Demonstration Board, the company's first demonstration board designed for its high pin-count PIC18F Flash microcontrollers.
Fully functional, the tool demonstrates the digital and analogue peripherals of the PIC18FXX20 microcontrollers and allows for rapid and easy prototyping without the need to design a printed circuit board to support the included PIC18F8720 Flash microcontroller.
The PIC18FXX20 demonstration board offers digital features that include an RS232 serial port, ICD connection, 8 x LED for diagnostic tests, crystal clock circuit (RC option), and reset and user buttons.
Analogue features include potentiometer input to an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) input channel and a sample of Microchip's TC74 temperature sensor.
Outfitted with a PIC18F8720 Flash microcontroller, the demonstration board also complements Microchip's MPLAB In-Circuit Debugger (ICD) 2 tool. Microchip's MPLAB IDE software can be downloaded for free from Microchip web site.
The MPLAB ICD 2 development tool is a powerful, low-cost run-time tool that offers cost-effective in-circuit Flash programming and debugging from the graphical user interface of the MPLAB Integrated Development Environment (IDE) tool.
This enables a designer to develop and debug source code by watching variables, single-stepping and setting break points. Running at full speed enables testing hardware in real-time.