Design times cut by thermocouple EMF to temperature converter

The MCP9600 simplifies thermocouple designs by integrating these discrete devices into one chip, reducing board area, cost, and power consumption.      

The device converts thermocouple electromotive force (EMF) to degrees Celsius with integrated cold-junction compensation to avoid incorrect measurements. It corrects the thermocouple nonlinear error characteristics of eight thermocouple types (K, J, T, N, S, E, B, R) and outputs temperature data accurate to ±1.5 degrees Celsius for the selected thermocouple.

It provides designers with a plug-and-play solution for creating thermocouple-based designs, because it eliminates the design expertise required for a discrete implementation, such as firmware development using a microcontroller’s math engine.      

The MCP9600 includes user-programmable registers, which provide design flexibility for various temperature-sensing applications, including low-power modes for battery-powered applications, adjustable digital filter for fast transient temperatures, and four individually programmable temperature alert outputs that can be used to detect multiple temperature zones.

The temperature alert limits have multiple programmable configurations such as alert polarity as either an active-low or active-high push-pull output, and output function as comparator mode (useful for thermostat-type operation) or interrupt mode for microprocessor-based systems. In addition, the alerts can detect either a rising or a falling temperature with up to 255 degrees Celsius hysteresis.      

This sensor uses an industry-standard 2-wire, I²C-compatible serial interface and supports up to eight devices per bus by setting the device address using the ADDR pin. The MCP9600 supports thermal management and measurement applications in harsh environments, including those in the industrial, consumer, automotive, aerospace, and petrochemical markets.