- Provides reliable and safe system designing
- Configurability eliminates need for external components
Internet of Things (IoT) is providing greater connectivity for industrial and home applications. With enhanced cabin and operational features of connected vehicles, high-performing microcontrollers are required for better real-time control and enable enhanced human-machine interface applications. Taking a step towards this, Microchip Technology has now announced its next-generation AVR® DA family of microcontrollers (MCUs) – a Functional Safety Ready AVR MCU family with Peripheral Touch Controller (PTC).
Microchip’s new AVR DA family of MCUs enable CPU speeds of 24 MHz over the full supply voltage range, memory density of up to 128 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM and 512 bytes of EEPROM, 12-bit differential ADC, 10-bit DAC, analogue comparators and zero-cross detectors. The PTC enables capacitive touch interface designs supporting buttons, sliders, wheels, touchpads, smaller touch screens as well as gesture controls used in a wide range of consumer and industrial products and vehicles. The AVR DA family supports up to 46 self-capacitance and 529 mutual capacitive touch channels and features the latest generation PTC with Driven Shield+ and boost mode technologies providing enhanced noise immunity, water tolerance, touch sensitivity and response time.
Secure communication
Additionally, the embedded real-time control systems of the AVR DA family of MCUs enable inter-peripheral communication without involving the CPU. Events are latency-free and never lost, thus providing enhanced real-time performance and predictability for reliable and safe designs. This leads to the overall reduction of power consumption of the application.
Microchip’s Functional Safety Ready applies to devices that incorporate the latest safety features and are supported by safety manuals, Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) reports and diagnostic software – reducing the time and cost of certifying safety end-applications. The AVR DA MCU families include several integrated safety functions to ensure robust operation features for ensuring a sufficient supply voltage such as power-on reset, brown-out detector and voltage-level monitor. The cyclic redundancy check (CRC) scan ensures the application code in the flash memory is valid. By ensuring code integrity, unintended and potentially unsafe behaviour of the application can be avoided.
Robust configuration
The configurable custom logic peripheral enables the setup of logical functions internally, eliminating the need for external components. This helps reduce board space and bill of material costs. With the new advanced analogue features like the 12-bit differential ADC, the AVR DA family of MCUs can measure small-amplitude signals in noisy environments, making them well suited for sensor node applications in harsh environments.
The AVR DA family of MCU’s high memory density and SRAM to flash ratio make it attractive for both wireless and wired connected sensors nodes, as well as other stack intensive applications.
“With this AVR DA family of microcontrollers Microchip builds on our legacy of high performance and high code efficiency devices, now meeting new demand across multiple industries with advanced analogue and core independent peripherals, and more capacitive touch channels over existing devices,” said Greg Robinson, associate vice president of marketing, 8-bit microcontroller business unit. “The technology spans applications from connected home security, building automation and sensor systems to automotive and industrial automation, enabling the designs of more robust, accurate and responsive applications.”
Development Tools
Microchip’s AVR DA family offers several options for software and hardware support. Software support includes Microchip’s MPLAB® X, MPLAB Xpress and Atmel Studio, code configuration tools including MCC and START, and compilers including GCC, XC8 and the IAR Embedded Workbench. A functional safety certified version of the XC8 compiler is available via Microchip’s Functional Safety Ready program. Hardware support is included in debuggers/programmers including MPLAB PICkit™ 4, MPLAB SNAP, Atmel ICE and the AVR128DA48 Curiosity Nano evaluation kit.
The AVR-DA family of MCs is available from Microchip authorized worldwide distributor, sales representative, or visit Microchip’s website.
