CAN microcontrollers boast big memories

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Aug 16, 2006

Family of 8bit high-performance low-power 28- and 44-pin CAN microcontrollers come with 80 or 96Kbyte of Flash and integrated EEPROM.

New from Microchip, the PIC18F4685 family of 8bit high-performance low-power 28- and 44-pin Controller Area Network (CAN) microcontrollers come with 80 or 96Kbyte of Flash and integrated EEPROM.

This is the largest amount of program memory available on a PIC18 microcontroller with an onboard ECAN module for CAN connectivity.

Microchip's ECAN module is an easy-to-use scalable CAN 2.0B solution with the ability to switch between standard CAN operations and FIFO mode.

A wide range of automotive and industrial applications can take advantage of the reliable communication offered by the CAN protocol.

However, the required industry-standard CAN protocol software is growing in sise, reducing the available code space for the actual application.

The PIC18F4685 increases the amount of available memory for PIC18 CAN applications, offering a migration path from existing 32 and 64Kbyte devices.

The new microcontrollers are supported by Microchip's development tools, including the MPLAB integrated development environment (IDE) and MPLAB ICD2 in-circuit debugger, while the PICDEM CAN-LIN 2 demonstrationboard (part number DM163011) allows engineers to evaluate the functionality of the devices' integrated CAN module.

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.

All are available now for general sampling and volume production.