Microchip intros world’s lowest sleep current, smallest packaged 16-bit MCUs with USB and touch sensing

CHANDLER, USA: Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, announced two new families of 16-bit PIC24F microcontrollers (MCUs) -— one with USB functionality and one for general-purpose applications—both of which feature nanoWatt XLP extreme low power technology, small packages and mTouch capacitive touch sensing.

The USB family provides for Peripheral, Embedded Host and On-the-Go (OTG) implementations. Microchip’s nanoWatt XLP technology provides the world’s lowest sleep currents, with current consumption down to 20 nA in Deep Sleep mode, resulting in the lowest power consumption of any MCU with USB OTG—10 times lower than USB MCUs from other ultra-low-power manufacturers.

“Microchip’s latest USB PIC MCUs enable the smallest footprint and lowest power consumption for applications such as thumb-drive interfaces, capacitive touch panels and many battery-powered applications,” said Mitch Obolsky, vice president of Microchip’s Advanced Microcontroller Architecture Division.

“Microchip provides industry-leading USB software support, configuration tools, customer training and USB development boards to help designers get to market quickly.”

The PIC24FJ64GA104 general-purpose family features nanoWatt XLP technology, 16 MIPS performance, 32 or 64 Kbytes of Flash, 8 Kbytes of RAM, a capacitive touch sensing peripheral, Real Time Clock and Calendar (RTCC), a 10-bit A/D, and the ability to reconfigure digital I/O pins via Peripheral Pin Select.

The PIC24FJ64GB004 family builds on these features with the world’s easiest-to-use and most complete Full-Speed USB 2.0 Peripheral, Embedded Host and OTG solution. Both families are available in 28-pin QFN, SOIC and PDIP packages, and 44-pin QFN and TQFP packages.

Example applications for the new PIC24FJ64GA104 and PIC24FJ64GB004 MCUs include: Battery-powered (remote controls, security systems, portable meters, irrigation timers), Consumer (thermostats, smoke detectors, business card scanners/printers), Industrial (utility metering, electronic locks, POS terminals), Automotive (remote keyless entry, audio and infotainment), and Medical (glucometers, blood pressure monitors, fitness monitors).