Microchip's PIC Microcontroller Line extended to 32 Bits

6th November 2007

ES Admin

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Microchip has announced the PIC32 family of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), adding more performance and memory while maintaining pin, peripheral and development compatibility with Microchip’s 16-bit MCU/DSC families. The new PIC32 family is fully supported by Microchip’s free MPLAB Integrated Development Environment (IDE) which now offers unprecedented compatibility by supporting Microchip’s complete portfolio of 8-, 16- and 32-bit devices.

Launching with seven general-purpose devices, the PIC32 family operates at up to

72 MHz and offers ample code- and data-space with up to 512 KB Flash and 32 KB RAM. The PIC32 family also includes a rich set of integrated peripherals including a variety of communication peripherals and a 16-bit Parallel Master Port supporting additional memory and displays.

The PIC32 family is based on the industry-standard MIPS32® architecture, with its leading combination of high performance, low power consumption, fast interrupt response and extensive industry tool support. The PIC32’s high-performance MIPS32 M4K® core can achieve best-in-class 1.5 DMIPS/MHz operation, due to its efficient instruction-set architecture, 5-stage pipeline, hardware multiply/accumulate unit and up to 8 sets of 32 core registers. In addition, to reduce memory requirements, the PIC32 supports the MIPS16e™ 16 bit ISA – enabling code-size reductions of up to 40%.

All PIC32 products are supported by Microchip’s world-class development tools, including the MPLAB IDE, the new MPLAB C32 C compiler, the MPLAB REAL ICE™ emulation system, the MPLAB ICD 2 in-circuit debugger and the Explorer 16 development board.

The PIC32 is also launching with broad MIPS-based tool support throughout the industry. Complete tool chains are available from Ashling, Green Hills and Hi-Tech—including C and C++ compilers, IDEs and debuggers. RTOS support is available from various vendors including CMX, Express Logic, FreeRTOS, Micrium, Segger and Pumpkin. In addition, graphics display tools providers include EasyGUI, Segger,

RamTeX and Micrium.

The PIC32 Starter Kit comes complete with everything that developers need to get started, including the USB-powered MCU board, MPLAB IDE and the MPLAB C32 C compiler, documentation, sample projects with tutorials, schematics, and 16-bit compatible peripheral libraries. Application expansion boards are also being made available, which plug into the expansion slot on the bottom of the MCU board.