New low power MCUs enable cost-effective, space-constrained designs

Microchip’s new PIC24 ‘GA7’ family of microcontrollers is available now. As one of the lowest-cost 256KB Flash memory 16-bit MCUs available today, these PIC24 devices enable extremely cost-effective designs for Internet of Things (IoT) sensor nodes, portable medical devices and industrial control applications. The family enables developers to cut power consumption, cost and space. The devices offer low-power modes including multiple sleep modes, down to 190nA, to greatly decrease power consumption for extended battery life in portable applications at a fraction of the cost of previous solutions. The new devices also offer up to 256KB Flash and 16KB RAM and are available in 28, 44 and 48-pin count package options, some as small as 4m x 4mm. Products in the family support CIPs such as CLC, MCCP and DMA, which allow developers to accomplish tasks in hardware while freeing the CPU to do other tasks or to sleep. The new microcontrollers also feature a robust peripheral set including 12-bit, 200ksps ADC, up to seven timers and two UARTs. The new family is supported by the Explorer 16/32 Development Board ecosystem (DM240001-2) as well as the new PIC24FJ256GA705 Plug-In Module (MA240039) which plugs into the Explorer 16/32 Board for easy evaluation and development. Designers can accelerate development by leveraging the family’s compatibility with the comany’s established software development platforms including MPLAB Code Configurator, MPLAB X IDE and XC16 Compiler. The devices are also supported by the company’s MPLAB Xpress Cloud-Based IDE, which is an online development environment containing the most popular features of MPLAB X IDE. MPLAB Xpress incorporates the latest version of MPLAB Code Configurator, which enables users to automatically generate initialization and application C code using a graphical interface and pin map. The MPLAB Xpress IDE is free and can be accessed from any Internet-connected computer, anywhere in the world. The family is available in 64KB, 128KB and 256KB Flash variants with 28-pin, 44-pin and 48-pin packaging options.