21 Dec 11

Our friends at Microchip have released a new class of microcontrollers that integrate a sub-GHz RF transmitter and an 8-bit PIC MCU with the PIC12LF1840T48A. This small 14-pin IC package (about 4.4mm square) is designed for applications such as home automation systems, remote garage door openers, remote keyless entry for cars, remotec ar starting, and many other applications where less space, lower cost, and low power-consumption is needed.

Battery life can be maximized by using an operating voltage of 1.8V. At this voltage, the operating current is only 34.5uA at 1MHz, while it goes up to about 9ma when transmitting. The standby current inthe sleep mode is about 500nA, and if the RF unit is disabled this current goes down to 30nA. It's also possible to have the power completely turned off in normal operation, so the chip would have power applied only when transmitting.

The chip features 7K of Flash program memory, 256 bytes of SRAM, and 256 bytes of data EEPROM. In-circuit serial programming and debugging can be done with two serial I/O pins. The serial interface canbe either I2C, SPI, or EUSART with auto baud rate detection. There are several modes of oscillation, with clock speeds up to 32MHz.