8bit PIC MCU enables touch sensing

Microchip Technology Inc. has extended its 8bit eXtreme Low Power (XLP) enhanced midrange core PIC MCUs. According to the company, the 28-pin PIC16F1512/13 devices offer a combination of advanced digital and analogue peripherals, along with XLP for the extended battery life, for applications in the appliance, medical, consumer and automotive markets.

Touting active current down to 30?A/MHz and sleep current down to 20nA, the MCUs integrate a 17x10bit ADC, EUSART, I2C/SPI, 2x Capture Compare PWMs, 7KB flash and 256B RAM.

Compared to other members of the PIC16F151X family, the devices deliver increased analogue capability, including a 10bit ADC with hardware capacitive voltage divider (CVD) support for mTouch capacitive touch sensing implementation, stated the company. The additional control logic enables automated touch sampling, which reduces software size and lowers CPU usage. It also provides an automatic control of guard-ring drive and a programmable sample-and-hold capacitance to better match larger touch or proximity sensors.

The PIC16F1512/13 MCUs are supported by Microchip's full suite of standard development tools, including the free MPLAB X IDE, the MPLAB PM3 Universal Device Programmer (part # DV007004, $895), and the PICkit 3 (part # PG164130, $44.95) and MPLAB ICD 3 (part # DV164035, $189.99) debuggers/programmers. The PIC16F15XX MCUs are also supported by Microchip's F1 evaluation tools, including the F1 evaluation platform (part # DM164130-1, $39.99) and the F1 evaluation kit, which includes the PICkit 3 (part #DV164132, $69.99). Additionally, the MPLAB XC8 compiler for 8bit PIC MCUs is available.

The PIC16F1512 and PIC16F1513 MCUs are both available for sampling and volume production in 28-pin SSOP, SOIC, SPDIP and 4 x 4 x 0.5mm UQFN packages. Pricing starts at $0.58 each in high-volume quantities.