New Microchip PIC16 and PIC18 Family of LCD Microcontrollers with Flash, EEPROM, and A/D

CHANDLER, Ariz., Sept. 27, 2004 [NASDAQ:  MCHP] — Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, today announced the new Microchip PIC LCD microcontroller product family.

This product family, composed of Microchip PIC16 and PIC18 microcontrollers, is introduced with eight members of the 8-bit PIC® microcontroller family with an integrated Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD) module.  These LCD PIC microcontrollers include 28-pin Flash LCD microcontrollers, and 80-pin Flash LCD microcontrollers, capable of driving 192 segments for touchscreen and segmented LCD displays. Microchip’s LCD PIC microcontroller family features Flash and EEPROM memory, low power consumption and LCD control. 

“Microchip’s Flash LCD microcontrollers offer the greatest breadth of LCD segment drivers, package sizes, and integrated features for embedded control applications,” said Ganesh Moorthy, Vice President of the Advanced Microcontroller and Memory Division.  “These new products, all of which include our industry-leading nanoWatt Technology, offer customers compelling choices that provide solution advantages in their applications.”

Microchip's LCD microcontrollers are designed to direct-drive 3V or 5V LCD drive modules. Gone are the days of LCD modules requiring + or -23V; today's LCD modules perform the proper voltage conversion so that microcontrollers such as Microchip's new family can drive them directly. No muss, no fuss.

Example applications for the new PIC LCD microcontroller family include:  automotive (dashboard displays); instrumentation/measurement (medical instruments/monitors, meter reading, handheld terminal/remote reading); appliance (display/control units on stoves/ovens, microwaves, etc.); industrial (payment systems, water/gas/electric/heat utility meters, gasoline pumps); consumer (programmable thermostats/controls, irrigation control, home security systems, exercise equipment); communications (handset displays).

Additional features include:

• 8 to 16 Kbytes of Flash program memory options
• 768 Bytes of SRAM
• 256/768 bytes EEPROM with >1M Erase/Write cycles
• Enhanced LCD module with four multiplex commons and up to 48 segment drivers
• Six power-managed modes featuring nanoWatt Technology
• 32 kHz to 32 MHz internal oscillator
• High core performance of up to 10 MIPS
• 10-bit analog-to-digital converter with up to 12 signal channels and 100k samples-per-second
• Two analog comparators
• Programmable brownout detect
• Programmable low-voltage detect
• MI2C/SPI, EUSART (supports LIN) and AUSART communication protocol support
• Four timers and two Capture/Compare/PWM Modules

Microchip's Flash and EEPROM memory is based upon their patented PEEC PMOS EE Cell Technology. This cell has a data retention of over 40 years, is capable of >10 Million erase/write/read cycles, and is one of the fastest NVM cells in the industry.

Development Tools
All eight microcontrollers are supported by Microchip’s standard, high-performance development systems, including:  MPLAB Integrated Development Environment (IDE), MPLAB C18 C Compiler, MPLAB ICD 2 In-Circuit Debugger, and MPLAB ICE 2000/4000 In-Circuit Emulators.  LCD Demonstration boards are expected to be available in November , including:  the PICDEM™ LCD Demo Board (part # DM163028) and an LCD evaluation kit.

Availability
The PIC18FXX90 LCD microcontrollers are available now.  The PIC16F916 and PIC16F917 are sampling today, and volume production is expected in December.  Samples and volume production for the PIC16F913 and PIC16F914 products are planned for the first calendar quarter of 2005.  Package options for all of the LCD family members are listed below.
PIC18F6390 and PIC18F6490:  64-pin TQFP
PIC18F8390 and PIC18F8490:  80-pin TQFP
PIC16F913 and PIC16F916:  28-pin QFN, SOIC, SPDIP and SSOP
PIC16F914 and PIC16F917:  40-pin PDIP; 44-pin QFN and TQFP

About Microchip Technology
Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:  MCHP) is a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, providing low-risk product development, lower total system cost and faster time to market for thousands of diverse customer applications worldwide. Headquartered in Chandler, Arizona, Microchip offers outstanding technical support along with dependable delivery and quality.

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