MCUs integrate two ADCs for capacitive-touch sensing

23rd September 2014

Nat Bowers

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Datasheet

Expanding its PIC12/16LF155X 8-bit MCU family, Microchip has introduced the PIC16LF1554 and PIC16LF1559 devices. The MCUs integrate 100kSPS ADCs with hardware Capacitive Voltage Divider (CVD) support for capacitive-touch sensing. This enables more efficient sensor acquisition and helps advanced touch-sensing techniques for extremely noisy environments, low-power applications, matrix keypads and water-resistant designs.

Up to 17 ADC channels are combined with automated hardware CVD modules to implement capacitive sensing and other front-end sampling applications with minimal software overhead. The hardware CVD specifically reduces the code for implementing capacitive touch-sensing by more than 40%. The reduces the code for implementing capacitive touch-sensing by more than 40%.

The PIC16LF1554/9 MCUs are suitable for consumer electronics, automotive, medical and industrial applications including: remote controls; audio players; cell phone accessories; small appliances; wearable devices including headphones, watches and fitness wristbands; automotive interior controls; control panels; blood-pressure monitors; wearable heart-rate monitors; RFID; and sensors.

Operating over a temperature range from -40 to +85°C, the PIC16LF1554 and PIC16LF1559 MCUs feature up to 14kB Flash or 512B RAM, a 32MHz internal oscillator, two PWM modules and I²C, SPI and EUSART for communications. Offering active currents of 35µA/MHz and sleep currents of 30nA, the devices are eXtreme Low Power compliant for applications where energy conservation is critical.

Microchip also provides a full suite of development tools supporting the PIC16LF1554/9 MCUs, including: the MPLAB X IDE; PICkit 3 (PG164130) priced at $44.95; MPLAB XC8 Compiler for 8-bit PIC MCUs; and MPLAB Code Configurator.

The PIC16LF1554 and PIC16LF1559 MCUs are available now. The former are supplied in 14-pin PDIP, TSSOP, SOIC and 16-pin QFN packages, while the latter are available in pin PDIP, SSOP and QFN packages.