Microchip releases PIC12F family for low-power and small footprint applications

Microchips release of the PIC12F family is ideally suited for low-power and small footprint applications.

This family, along with the PIC16F, has an 8-bit CPU that can operate at speeds up to 5 MIPS. Device variants in the PIC12F family have 8 pins (PIC16F variants are offered in 14-pin through 64-pin packages). These are targeted for low cost, low power, space constrained designs that also require sufficient computational power.

Some variants in the PIC family have one or more Enhanced Capture Compare PWM Peripheral (ECCP) modules. The ECCP module is optimized for controlling 1/2 bridge or H-bridge motor drive circuits. It can also be used to steer PWM control signals among 4 output pins for BLDC motor commutation or stepper motor control.

To minimize power consumption, these flash-based microcontrollers have been developed with Microchips “XLP” (Extreme Low-Power Management) Technology. For comparison, under typical operating conditions at 1.8V the power utilization is:

Sleep mode: 20 nA Watchdog Timer: 300 nA Timer1 Oscillator: 650 nA (@ 32 kHz) Operating Current: 30 μA/MHz

For a small device, these are surprisingly feature rich. Below is a short list of highlights for the PIC12F:

• 4 channel PWM
• 10-bit 256 bytes of EEPROM data memory
• Extended WDT MPLAB® ICD 3
• programming support or debugging support with optional header adapter
• Precision internal oscillator-software selectable 8 MHz-32 KHz
• Software selectable BOR
• Precision 4 MHz internal oscillator
• Baseline Core with 33 Instructions, 2 Stack Levels
• All single-cycle Instructions except for program branches which are two cycles
• 12-bit wide instructions
• 8-bit wide data path
• 25 mA source/sink current I/O
• One 8-bit timer (TMR0)
• Watchdog timer (WDT)
• In Circuit Serial Programming™ (ICSP™) capability
• In-Circuit debugging support
• Programmable code protection

One feature of the PIC12F family, that isn’t found on all devices in this category of microcontrollers is for the system level debug and development. ICD (In Circuit Debug) is integrated into the chip. No debug header is required, although an optional adapter can be used for MPLAB® support.

For more information, data sheets and selector guide, please visit the Microchip PIC Microcontroller homepage: