Microchip expands stand-alone real-time clock calendar device family

CHANDLER, USA: Microchip Technology Inc. announced the expansion of its stand-alone Real-Time Clock Calendar (RTCC) family with the I2C MCP7940M RTCC device.

This new device is designed for the price-competitive consumer products market, and includes 64 Bytes of SRAM as additional scratchpad memory, as well as a digital-trimming circuit that can compensate up to 11 seconds per day for crystal error. The MCP7940M devices provide accurate timekeeping at a low cost for applications in the home-appliance (e.g., microwaves, washing machines, dryers, ovens, thermostats); audio/video (e.g., radios, televisions, set-top boxes, digital recorders); and consumer-electronic markets (e.g., printers, network routers, cameras), among others.

Following the launches of Microchip’s stand-alone I2C MCP79410 and SPI MCP795WXX/BXX RTCC devices in 2010 and 2011, respectively, the MCP7940M device has a simple feature set that meets the needs of the high-volume segment of the RTCC device market.

Microchip now has stand-alone RTCC devices for the low, mid and upper-mid ranges of this market. The on-chip digital trimming circuit has a wide trimming range of +/-127 ppm, enabling designers to select lower-quality crystals for their designs to reduce overall system costs.

“After receiving many customer requests for low-end real-time clocks and conducting our own analysis of this market, we developed the MCP7940M RTCC device,” said Randy Drwinga, VP of Microchip’s Memory Products Division. “By offering a price-competitive RTCC that also includes 64 Bytes of SRAM and a digital-trimming circuit for higher accuracy, we believe that our solution will have a distinct advantage over the competition.”