CAN microcontrollers: more memory, small package

By Control Engineering Staff August 10, 2006

Chandler , AZ — Makers of remote sensors and actuators should check out Microchip Technology Inc.’s new four-member PIC18F4685 family of high-performance, low-power 8-bit Controller Area Network (CAN) microcontrollers. The product line comes with 80 or 96 Kbytes of Flash and integrated EEPROM memory, reportedly the largest amount of program memory available on any PIC18 microcontroller with an onboard ECAN module for CAN connectivity. Additionally, industrial and automotive designers can benefit from the small 28- and 44-pin package sizes of this family for space-constrained applications.

Industry-standard CAN protocols are growing in size, so the PIC18F4685 is designed to offer enough code space for both the CAN protocol and advanced applications. And, each microcontroller in this family features Microchip’s ECAN module, an easy-to-use scalable CAN 2.0B solution with the ability to switch between standard CAN operations and FIFO mode. The family also provides a migration path from Microchip’s low-power 32 and 64 Kbyte CAN families to 80 and 96 Kbyte Flash memory. Microchip’s MPLAB Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and MPLAB ICD2 In-Circuit Debugger support all four Flash microcontrollers.

The microcontrollers are available now for general sampling at https://sample.microchip.com and volume-production ordering at www.microchipdirect.com. The PIC18F4685/4682 come in 44-pin TQFP and 40-pin PDIP packages, and the PIC18F2685/2682 are available in 28-pin SOIC and PDIP packages, all of which are RoHS-compliant. Prices start at $5.26 each in 10,000 unit quantities.

— Renee Robbins , embedded sysetms editor, Control Engineering